


I Keep Your Picture Up On the Wall

by Polaris



Series: I’m Not in Love [10]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Endgame needed more Sean Gunn, Family Feels, Grief/Mourning, Homecoming, Other, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Ravager Politics, Reunions, Shower Sex, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-17 05:07:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18958489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polaris/pseuds/Polaris
Summary: “I am Groot?” says a small voice behind him, and Rocket turns away from staring at the stars to give the kid a weak smile.“Yeah, we’re going home,” he tells Groot.Whatever that means anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a word for how it feels, after. Rocket’s sure of it. He just doesn’t have the first clue what it might be. Coming out of the rubble and seeing those portals open and everyone they’ve lost coming through them—seeing _Groot_ coming through—there’s a word for how that made him feel.

But just now he don’t feel a whole lot of anything. They’re back in space, because Quill couldn’t get off Earth fast enough, and the coordinates to the Quadrant are keyed in. They’d split off, before—well, before, took the _Benatar_ to go rescue the Asgardians and left Yondu and Kraglin to hold down the fort.

Rocket hasn’t seen either of them in five years, and he’s got no idea what he’s gonna say when he does. 

“I am Groot?” says a small voice behind him, and he turns away from staring at the stars to give the kid a weak smile.

“Yeah, we’re going home,” he tells Groot.

Whatever that means anymore.

—

Quill ain’t dealing well. He picks fights with Thor when Thor isn’t picking fights with him, and he plays only his mom’s songs, and he spends a lot of time alone in the cockpit. It’s like watching Thor lose himself all over again, and Rocket wants to scream. 

“He’s grieving,” Drax says softly when Groot asks.

Rocket looks away.

“I...am Groot,” Groot finally says, and it hits Rocket all over again. Gamora— _their_ Gamora—is gone. There might be another one out there wearing her face, but she don’t know them. The Gamora that loved Quill and raised Groot and was one of Rocket’s best friends died alone on Vormir. Groot’s mom is as dead as Quill’s is. 

He startles himself when a sob tears loose. He didn’t think he had anymore tears to cry.

“I am Groot!” Groot hurries to him and Rocket finds himself wrapped in a pair of skinny leafy arms. There ain’t a tree on Earth that smells like Groot, and Rocket lets the warm, sunny scent wash over him as he tries to get it together. This isn’t fresh; he’s had his time to mourn and move on. He should be able to keep his head, let the others deal. Be the strong one. God knows he’s had the practice. 

“Hey, I’m fine, it’s fine,” he mutters, rubbing his hands up and down Groot’s arms. “We’re gonna be fine.” He meets Drax’s eyes when he looks up and knows he’s a liar.

“You’re different, you know,” Drax tells him after Groot’s retreated into his video game; Rocket’s out of practice being a dad, so he doesn’t set a time limit or any of the crap he used to do.

“Yeah, I know.” Rocket sighs. Five years is a long time. Funny, you never notice how you change when other people around you are changing too, but it’s getting clearer and clearer the longer he hangs around his family. He’s not the same person he was before this. And he don’t even have a big visual indicator that he’s hit rock bottom, not like Thor. No grief beard, no beer gut, no wandering around looking like that guy in the movie who just wants his rug back. Maybe a little more grey around his snout, but that’s it. All Rocket’s changes have been on the inside.

“He’s going to need you now more than ever,” says Drax. 

Rocket glances toward the stairs to the cockpit, where he can faintly hear the sounds of Sam Cooke playing. “It ain’t just me he needs.”

“No. But you didn’t see Quill on Titan. Gamora’s death broke him.” Rocket wishes Drax would learn some tact sometimes. The way he charges through people’s feelings like a bull in a china shop—and shit, Rocket’s gonna have to watch it with the Earth sayings—is kinda grating when you’re not used to it anymore. Oblivious, Drax continues, “I don’t think he’s going to be much use for some time.”

“He searches for her,” says Mantis. She pulls up a chair. “He feels despair because she does not want to be found.”

Of course she doesn’t. If the Rocket from 2014 was suddenly thrust into this time he wouldn’t want anything to do with these jerks either. Gamora would take one look at their fucked up, touchy-feely band of morons and run as fast as she could in the other direction. Which is apparently what she did after she kneed Quill in the balls.

“She ain’t who she used to be,” Rocket says flatly. “That’s gonna suck, but we can deal with it. At least she’s here.”

“Exactly.” Thor’s back from the bathroom, still wearing his stupid sweatshirt. He’s washed his hair, which Rocket’s taking as a good sign; maybe the chat with his mom did him some good. “You got your people back. Where there’s life there’s hope, right?” He smiles brightly. It doesn’t fool Rocket at all.

“Uh huh.” Rocket eyes him until he stops grinning like an idiot and sits down. 

“That reminds me,” says Mantis, “Kraglin left you a message earlier, but he marked it private so I didn’t listen to it.”

Rocket’s tail twitches. “I’ll check it out in a little while.”

Drax peers at him. “He’ll expect to hear back soon.”

“Who’s Kraglin?” asks Thor.

Rocket don’t care for the way Mantis and Drax both turn to stare at him. “My husband,” he grunts.

Thor blinks. Then he blinks again a few times and squints at Rocket. “I didn’t know you were married.”

“Because I wasn’t,” Rocket says shortly, and slides out of his chair. “Not for the last five years.”

Drax is giving him a serious look, but Rocket can’t face that just now. “Don’t let Groot rot his brain with too much of that crap,” he mutters before he escapes into his cabin and closes the door. 

As soon as he’s alone he breathes, in slow like Rhodey taught him, and out, and it helps. It helps a little; Rocket’s not sure when exactly this happily ever after started to feel more like a nightmare, but he thinks it was sometime in the first forty-eight hours, when Thor moved the map on Quill one time too many and Quill put his fist through the console and stalked up to the cockpit without a word. That pretty much set the tone for the whole trip back.

Rocket takes another deep breath and pulls up the message.

“Hey princess.” Kraglin’s voice knocks the breath out of him. “Nebula called an’ filled us in, so I know about the five years you was gone.” Rocket can hear him take a shaky breath close to the receiver. “I wish we’d been there. We would’ve if we could’ve.”

Like Rocket doesn’t know that.

“Anyway,” Kraglin’s voice cracks like it always does when he gets emotional, “we’ll see ya soon enough. Keep an eye on Pete.” And that’s it. The message ends.

Rocket swallows hard. He remembers the funeral they held, after Thor killed Thanos and there was no point in hoping anymore. They only had the _Benatar,_ but they flew everyone into space and used some fireworks Carol got her hands on for the colors. He remembers how he and Nebula both stared at each other because neither of them knew what to say. He remembers writing everyone’s name on a piece of paper and burning that because there were no bodies to give to the stars. That was the last time he wore his reds; that was the last time he said their names out loud. He remembers how he broke down when they played Spirit in the Sky and how Nebula’s hand squeezed his shoulder so hard it ached for days afterward.

He’s got so many memories he can’t get rid of.

Somehow he thinks hearing Kraglin’s voice again should make him feel more than an empty ache. That’s why they did it, right? To bring back what they lost. That’s why he dragged Thor out of his depression shack and back into a fight that had already broken him. To get his own family back. 

Rocket didn’t think about what would happen after. Quill and Gamora always held each other up, and without her, he’s cracking. They lose Quill, they lose their captain. Someone else will have to take over like Valkyrie did on New Asgard, and Rocket ain’t prepared for it to be him. He can step up and be Groot’s dad while Quill works through his shit, but there was a reason nobody rallied around Rocket back when they were still figuring out who fit where in this new family of theirs. Rocket’s good in a crisis, but he’s not their leader.

He keeps breathing slow, trying to remember the exact scent of Kraglin’s skin, and the pitch of Yondu’s whistle. There was a time when they’d been the most familiar things in the galaxy. The three of them had soaked into each other’s pores and made themselves at home there. Now they’ll have to start over.

It’s not that he’s terrified, okay? He’s not. Why would he be terrified to see his husbands again after five years passed for him and five seconds passed for them?

Okay, he’s terrified. If the rest of his family is falling apart, what’s gonna happen to his marriage?

—

The Quadrant looms into view as they clear the jump point, and Thor comes to stand next to Rocket. “So this is your home,” he says.

“Yep.” The last time Rocket saw it, they were heading out on what was supposed to be a basic search and rescue. He can’t even remember the last thing he said to Yondu and Kraglin, because it was just another day. Nothing significant at all.

“It looks nice,” Thor offers, and then Quill’s voice calls him up to the cockpit to help dock the thing.

Rocket’s not ready for this, but he climbs the stairs anyway and takes his seat.

“You guys changed all the settings,” Quill grunts. “I had to fix everything when I got up here.”

Rocket glances at him. “Yeah,” is all he says. “Which spot’s open?” He can’t remember.

“We always park the _Benatar_ on the right,” says Quill in a tight voice; the hostility takes Rocket by surprise.

“Well excuse me,” he snaps. “It’s been a long five years.”

Quill opens his mouth and then snaps it shut again. He doesn’t answer, just takes them in smoothly. Rocket can see Kraglin standing on the catwalk just behind the force field and the sight makes his guts clench like the time Bruce got him to try Thai food. The chains drop down and lock onto the ship to secure it, and Quill lowers the ramp and powers down the engines, and then it’s showtime.

Nebula is the first down the ramp. She nods to Kraglin and vanishes into the bowels of the ship with Mantis scurrying behind her. Not a lot of privacy on the _Benatar;_ if Rocket knows them, they’re off to fuck.

There’s a layer of dust everywhere, and a weird dry smell that speaks of abandonment. Thank god they’d all been so paranoid about keeping spacesuits and backup supplies on the ship; the oxygen must have run out ages ago. Yondu and Kraglin woke up in a graveyard. 

That thought leaves Rocket cold, and he raises a paw to his mouth to compulsively groom it.

“Picked that habit up again, huh?” Kraglin’s in front of him before he can process what he’s seeing.

“I—yeah.” Rocket lowers his paw. “Where’s—?”

“Quill!” Yondu’s voice would sound harsh to anyone who couldn’t see the look on his face. He strides forward and grabs Quill roughly by the back of the neck, reeling him in until he can grip his face between his hands. “Boy,” he rasps, and then seems to run out of words. “My boy,” he repeats, softer, and lets his forehead rest against Quill’s.

Quill grips Yondu’s jacket hard enough to crinkle the leather. “She’s gone,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. 

Yondu sighs. “I know. Li’l sister told us.” He squeezes the back of Quill’s neck.

“What am I gonna do?” Quill asks helplessly.

“Same thing you always done. Pick up an’ start over. She’s out there someplace, an’ if she’s got any sense she’ll come lookin’ for you.” Yondu gives Quill a little shake and lets him go. He gives Quill a second to stop clinging, and then he turns to Rocket. 

Rocket’s chest does something funny and it’s suddenly hard to breathe.

Yondu’s lips curl, just a little. “You got somethin’ t’ say t’ me, boy?”

And Rocket’s blinking back tears, struggling to get a breath in around the burning in his throat, and he whispers, “come a little bit closer,” and when Yondu laughs he remembers why it hurt so bad to even think about him, because that’s the best sound in the galaxy and he lost it, and he can’t forget how that felt.

Yondu drops to one knee with an audible creak and waits, but Rocket’s frozen, staring at him. It don’t feel real. None of it feels real.

“I’m right here, Rat,” Yondu says in that soft scratchy voice, and Rocket closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. It comes out as a sob.

“Aw, hell.” Kraglin steps in and scoops Rocket into his arms, pressing kisses to his ears and his snout without caring that there are people around.

Rocket jerks back; it’s been years since anyone touched him like that and he ain’t used to it. He can feel people’s eyes on him and it makes his skin crawl.

“You know, when you said you were married I sort of thought your husband would be more...” Thor trails off, clearing his throat.

Kraglin goes rigid. “Who’s this?” 

Rocket sighs, hooking his claws into Kraglin’s leathers. “That’s Thor. He’s one of the Avengers.”

“An’ what’s he doin’ here?” asks Yondu, pushing to his feet with a grunt. He flips his coat back.

“That’s a really good question,” says Quill snidely. “Rocket brought him along and I’m pretty sure all he’s been doing is trying to run my ship and eating all our food.”

“I already said you’re in charge,” Thor says reasonably, holding up his hands.

Quill’s eyes narrow.

“Thor, I will show you around,” says Drax quickly. “We have guest rooms you can choose from. They have their own bathrooms, and I can help if you want to shave off your grief beard.”

“My what?”

Drax gestures to his chin. “Your disgusting beard is a manifestation of your grief. Quill is growing one too, only his doesn’t look like orloni nest in it yet.”

“Hey!” Quill yelps.

“I am very good with a knife,” Drax continues. “If you want I will trim it for you.”

“I—thank you.” Thor looks a little self-conscious, but he follows Drax out of the hangar.

Yondu pulls Groot into a tight one-armed hug and ruffles his leaves. “Hey Twig.”

“I am Groot.” Groot sags against him. 

“Yeah,” Yondu says quietly, “It’s all gonna be shit for awhile an’ then it’ll get better. Come on, I found a stash o’ Quill’s candy that ain’t gone bad yet.” He gives Rocket a long, searching look. “An’ there’s a bottle o’ good stuff too.”

Rocket swallows. “Yeah,” he says, “that sounds good.” He grips Kraglin’s reds a little tighter and lets himself be carried down the hall. After a few minutes, curiosity gets the better of him. “How’s the ship holding up?”

Kraglin glances down. “Engines are in pretty good shape. No oxygen meant they didn’t rust much. Same thing handled the orloni infestation, but keep an eye out for the dead ones, we keep findin’ ‘em in weird places.”

“What about the food replicators?” Rocket asks quietly.

Kraglin hesitates. “We can get ‘em workin’ again. Now that you’re back.”

“First thing in the morning,” Rocket agrees. Those fucking food replicators were a wedding present, goddammit. He’s not going back to freeze dried shit food.

“An’ one o’ the water tanks busted,” Yondu calls back. “Iced up an’ burst. Made a hell of a mess, but we still got a workin’ one. Just gotta take short showers.”

“Right when Thor was finally starting to wash his hair,” Rocket mutters balefully.

“Mind tellin’ me what his deal is?” asks Kraglin lightly.

Rocket snorts. “He was supposed to be the king of Asgard. Things didn’t work out for him.”

Yondu stops. “He’s Asgardian?” 

“Yeah? Ain’t a big deal, they got a whole colony on Earth.”

“You mean Terra,” says Yondu.

“I am Groot.”

“Rocket does a lot of things differently now.” Rocket almost forgot about Quill; he’s just behind Kraglin, still being pissy. “Comes with being an Avenger, apparently.”

“You gonna give Nebula shit too?” growls Rocket. “I didn’t bring you back just to listen to you bitch at me.”

“Well, if you’d rather go hang out with your new best friend Thor, there’s nothing stopping you.”

“And cockblock Drax? I ain’t that cruel.”

It’s almost worth it for the horrified look on Quill’s face. “No,” he says.

“You got eyes in your head or are those as useless as your dipshit mouth? Drax is into him.”

“Yeah, but he’s—” Quill gestures to his belly.

Rocket snorts. “Thor ain’t the only one rocking the dad bod here, Quill.”

“The hell’s a dad bod?” Yondu asks.

“I am Groot?”

“No, you don’t gotta be a dad to have a dad bod,” Rocket sighs. “It’s—when you’re sorta chubby but in a good way. Girls on Earth think it’s sexy now.”

Yondu turns and squints at him suspiciously. “Is that right?”

Kraglin eyes Yondu, whose waistline ain’t quite as trim as it was when they first got married. “I get it.”

“Ew,” says Quill reflexively.

Rocket sighs. “Okay, so our priorities are getting our food replicators working and replacing the water tank. What else do we need to do, besides cleaning up dead orloni?”

“I am Groot,” says Groot, and sneezes.

“Yeah, okay, cleaning in general. Guess it took awhile for the air to run out because we got a hell of a dust situation here.”

Kraglin nods grimly. “Ducts are gonna need vacuumin’ too. But the filters started right up again. Only reason the water we got is clean.”

Rocket thinks about all the orloni that can breed on a ship without interference and makes a face. There was a reason he and Gamora splurged for the good filters.

“Rocket, the ducts are your job,” says Quill. “Kraglin, you get started on the repairs to the food replicators, and I’m gonna call around to price out a replacement for the water tank.”

“Or I can, an’ you can help Kraglin with the replicators,” says Yondu.

“Or you can actually follow orders, since you made me captain,” says Quill, smiling tightly.

Yondu stops and tilts his head. “Don’t you go pickin’ fights with me, boy,” he says softly. “I’ve always been on your side.”

Quill snorts, pushing past him. “How’s our comm functioning?” 

“Comm’s workin’ just fine, Cap’n,” says Kraglin, staring hard at Quill’s back.

“Good. Then I’ll start calling today.” Quill reaches out to give Groot’s shoulder a gentle squeeze and strides off.

“Shit,” Yondu murmurs after he’s gone.

“He always gotta be such a little asshole when he’s grievin’?” Kraglin muses.

“You’re an asshole when you don’t get breakfast, Krags, so you can shut th’ hell up,” says Yondu pleasantly. “Ain’t none of us gonna deal so well with losin’ Gamora.”

“I am Groot,” Groot whispers.

Yondu nods tiredly. “I know, Twig. Lucky for you, I learned a thing or two about dead mamas from raisin’ Quill. We’ll get you through this.”

“I am Groot!” Groot jerks away from him.

“What, dead?” Yondu shakes his head sadly. “Hurts t’ hear, boy, but she is. Not sayin’ it don’t make it not true.”

“I am _Groot,_ ” Groot snarls in a low voice.

Rocket decides to step in. “I told you, Groot, that’s not our Gamora. She time traveled from before you were even born. She don’t know us.”

Groot rounds on him, looking lost. “I am Groot,” he insists.

Rocket suddenly wishes that he could borrow the time stone and kill Thanos over and over in a bunch of different, increasingly nasty ways. Buzz saws, maybe. Nebula would probably like that. That son of a bitch killed Gamora and Natasha and Tony and Thor’s brother and he stole five years from Rocket and he put that look on Groot’s face. Rocket swallows hard. “Yeah, she’ll always be your mom,” he says quietly. “But you haven’t always been her kid.”

Groot turns away, leaves drooping. He sighs and mumbles, “I am Groot,” and skulks off in the direction of his room.

“You change your mind about that candy, you let me know,” calls Yondu. He runs a hand over his beard and lets it linger, rubbing his thumb absently over the scruff below his lip. Then he sighs too. “Shit.”

Rocket looks down. He doesn’t know what to say to either of them, and that makes something ugly tickle in his brain. There were things he didn’t question before all this, and the fact that he belonged with Yondu and Kraglin was one of them. They used to be comfortable together. Now Rocket sort of wishes Rhodey and Nebula were around.

“You got some gray,” Kraglin murmurs. He raises a finger and traces it across Rocket’s snout, making his whiskers tingle. “Right here. Pretty soon we’re gonna match.”

When Rocket raises his eyes he finds Kraglin’s blue ones shining. There’s an impossibly tender look on his face and it makes Rocket duck his head so he doesn’t have to face it. “You look good,” he chokes out. 

“I don’t look any different than last time ya saw me.”

“That was a long time ago,” Rocket mumbles, toying with a buckle. He can feel Yondu approach from behind, and he shuts his eyes.

“No more old man jokes from you,” Yondu says quietly, and he goes slow when he reaches out to touch Rocket’s back.

Rocket still jumps, but he forces himself to hold still and let Yondu stroke him. He just wants everything to go back to how it used to be; if he closes his eyes he could pretend, maybe, that this feels familiar instead of awkward and that any minute now Quill and Gamora are gonna come around the corner bickering about whether to take the next job. He used to do that, back at the beginning, back when he kept expecting to catch a whiff of Yondu or hear Groot’s voice or see Drax around every corner. Something used to flare up inside him every time he heard one of Quill’s songs when he was out and about; he’d taken to muting the tv during commercials because they’d used Hooked on a Feeling in a recurring one.

All the things he used to love got locked away in a box in his brain so they wouldn’t hurt as much, and now he’s having a hard time finding the key to get that box open again. Part of him doesn’t even want to, because how can he ever trust that it’s gonna stay? Sure, there’s no Thanos, but they’d felt the same kind of relief after Ego. Like they’d dodged a bullet and they’d be okay now.

They didn’t dodge this bullet, and Rocket’s been keeping a tourniquet on for the last five years so he wouldn’t bleed to death. Thing about tourniquets though, is that they tend to leave you pretty fucked up when you finally take them off after too long.

He hops down from Kraglin’s arms and paces away from them. “I should probably warn you guys that I ain’t the same anymore,” he says finally, claws digging into his arms. If he feels carefully under the fur, he can make out the raised line on his forearm from their wedding. He’d picked at it so it didn’t heal right; turns out lots of Ravagers do. Kraglin has tattoos around his, stark black linework that shows it off. Yondu always said it’s the only scar of his that he likes.

“‘Course you ain’t,” scoffs Yondu. “Don’t go thinkin’ we’re stupid. I know you. Quill might be pissy you moved on without us, but I ain’t.”

Rocket freezes. “What?”

Yondu makes a disgusted noise. “Terra rots brains,” he says to Kraglin. “That’s the only explanation for why he’s come back a dumbass. An’ a sad bitch too.”

“Hey!” That gets Rocket to turn around, and he sees Yondu’s playing him. There’s a big grin on that pretty face.

“You’ve always been the practical one,” Yondu tells him softly. 

“You fuck anyone?” asks Kraglin, and Yondu closes his eyes like he’s in pain.

Rocket stares at him flatly. “If it’s Terra that rots brains, what’s this idiot’s excuse?”

“Oxygen deprivation,” says Yondu from behind his hand. “He wasn’t always this stupid.”

“I’m just askin’,” Kraglin says too casually.

“And what would you do if I said yes?” asks Rocket.

For a second Kraglin blinks stupidly at him. “Rules is rules,” he finally says.

Rocket gives him a sweet smile. “Okay, baby, but she lives in a dumpster outside San Mateo and we’ve got like sixteen kids now.”

“What?” Kraglin asks while Yondu tries not to lose his shit behind him.

Rocket nods. “And all of ‘em are dumber than you. Are you done?”

Kraglin glares at Yondu, but it don’t stop him laughing.

“Ah hell,” wheezes Yondu, “I missed you, Rat.”

It makes Rocket smile, but something about it don’t sit right with him. Their marriage vows said they’d keep to their contract until the stars took them. Even if he had found someone new, Rocket kept that promise. He’d even avenged them by going to kill Thanos, for all the good that fucking did. Kraglin’s got no right asking him that shit; those years don’t belong to them. Rocket endured them alone and he don’t owe anyone an explanation for how he survived. 

It’s a shitty start to a reunion, that’s for sure.

—

Thor’s beard looks way better when they all sit down to eat later that night. He keeps running his hand over it thoughtfully, like he’s forgotten what his face feels like.

“I like it!” Mantis says brightly. “You are much more handsome without the food matted in your beard.”

“Thanks,” Thor mutters, wincing.

“The long hair suits you. You should keep it,” says Drax with a decisive nod. 

Quill stares at him with horrified fascination; it’s like now that Rocket pointed it out, he can’t unsee Drax’s massive boner for the guy. It’s a little like the way he used to look at Rocket right after he started sleeping with Yondu. And it’s sort of nice, having proof that it really wasn’t about Rocket being an animal. Quill just can’t cope with his own family having sex.

“When we have the food replicators repaired, I’ll cook better meals. Fresh food makes everything seem better.” Drax nods.

Thor forces a smile. “I’m grateful to you,” he says. “Really. Everything you’ve done for me, inviting me along...”

“Rocket invited you,” Quill mutters under his breath.

“I just...really appreciate it.” Thor nods briskly, blinking a few times. 

“It’s nothing.” Nebula slams a bottle of water down in front of him. “Now stop making it weird.” She sits down in the empty chair between him and Mantis.

Drax puts down trays of rehydrated food and looks around. “Where’s Groot?”

“Oh my god, that kid.” Quill pushes to his feet and slaps the wall comm. “Groot! It’s time for dinner, get in here!”

“ _I am Groot!_ ” comes the snide response from the comm.

Quill bares his teeth. “You’ve got until the count of three to come here and eat or I swear to god—”

“I am Groot!” Groot snarls, and cuts the comm.

Quill’s jaw drops. “That little—” 

“Deep breath, boy.” Yondu gives him a wry smile. “Or you’ll actually go wring his neck.”

Quill takes a deep breath through his nose, nostrils flaring, and then he lets it out. He sorta looks like a pug, but Rocket’s too nice to point it out.

“Quill,” says Rocket after a few too many seconds of pugging, “I can go talk to him—”

“I can deal with my own kid!” Quill yells.

The room gets very quiet.

“He’s my kid too,” Rocket says quietly.

Quill’s face does this thing where he might shoot Rocket or he might cry, and he turns away before his lip wobbles too bad. “I’ve got this. Just...stay here.” He hits the door button a little too hard as he leaves.

Rocket takes a few deep breaths of his own, feeling that old possessive urge rise up. The three of them were good at raising Groot, once upon a time. There’d been a rhythm there, a hard-earned understanding of who dealt with what, and that’s all shot to hell. The only thing that scares Rocket as much as losing his family again is letting Groot down because he’s too much of a fuckup to give the kid what he needs.

A hand lands on the back of his neck, heavy and warm, and Rocket flinches. Yondu pulls it back. “He’s okay, boy,” he says, acting like he didn’t notice. “They’re both gonna be just fine.”

Rocket can’t help it, he looks at Nebula. She meets his eyes, and the instant understanding in her face makes Rocket relax more than Yondu’s hand did. He nods and takes some vegetables. They taste like freezer, but what the hell.

“This is very good,” Thor lies politely, chewing some fried Xandarian fish.

“Would’ve been, five years ago,” Kraglin mutters.

Quill comes back, dragging Groot by a skinny arm. They both look pissed. “Sit,” Quill snaps, kicking out a chair and pointing to it.

“I am Groot,” Groot hisses, and sits down with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. He stares at the table in front of him.

“Well, guess what? I don’t care what you want. We’re a family, and we’re gonna eat together!” Quill’s gonna pop if anything else sets him off.

“I am Groot,” Groot mumbles under his breath, and Rocket goes cold.

Quill freezes. “What did you say to me?”

Thor lowers his fork and stares at his plate.

Groot looks up at Quill and Rocket doesn’t think he’s ever seen such rage in the kid’s eyes. “I am Groot.” He raises his chin.

“If families don’t let each other die, then you should be lookin’ at me,” says Rocket hollowly. “I couldn’t save her either.”

Groot looks startled, and Thor says, “being family isn’t enough to save you. Nothing is.”

“Okay now, that’s enough o’ that,” says Yondu firmly.

“Oh, will you quit it?” Quill demands. “Acting like you’ve got all the answers when your idea of comfort was to smack me and tell me to stop crying? Huh? ‘People die all the time, boy, you think that means I wanna listen to you blubbering!’”

Yondu stares him down. “I was younger than you are now when I said that, an’ just comin’ off my banishment. You wanna talk about takin’ your shit out on your kid?”

Quill clenches his fists, throws a blistering glare at Thor, and leaves.

Groot’s so tense he’s shaking, fingers digging into his arms. Rocket would submit to another vivisection without anesthetic if it would take away some of the kid’s pain.

Drax sits down next to him. “Your anger is for Thanos,” he says softly. “It’s easy to lash out at those around you when you are in pain, but remember that the only one responsible for Gamora’s murder is the one who killed her.”

“I am Groot,” Groot whispers, and lets Drax pull him into a hug. Drax is a good hugger; he’s huge and he sort of wraps his whole body around you. Even Rocket, who’s not big on being touched, appreciates Drax’s hugs.

Thor pushes to his feet. “Thank you for the meal,” he says roughly, and flees the room.

Mantis’s antennae droop. “We have got to remember that we love each other,” she whispers, clenching her hands on her lap. “There is so much anguish here, it will overwhelm us if we forget.”

“Love’s what makes it hurt so bad,” says Rocket. He climbs onto the table and wraps his arms around Groot. “If you didn’t love her, you wouldn’t care that she’s gone.”

“I am Groot.” Groot turns in Drax’s arms and grabs Rocket.

It would bother him from anyone else, being cuddled like a Build-a-Bear, but all Rocket wishes is that Groot was still tiny enough that he could wrap his kid up in his arms instead of the other way around. It’s part of fatherhood, he knows, but right now it’s just bittersweet.

“So what are we gonna do?” Kraglin asks.

“We’ll think o’ something,” says Yondu.

—

Rocket meets Nebula on the bridge later; he’s not sure how he ever managed to sleep with Yondu snoring like a jet engine in his ear, but he was about ready to smother him with a pillow after twenty minutes or so. Taking a walk seemed like a better alternative.

He sits down in the chair next to hers and stares out at the stars. “It’s weird, right? It ain’t just me?”

“No,” she agrees. “It’s not just you.”

“Okay, good. I was starting to think it was me.”

They watch the stars.

“I have her comm signature,” Nebula says abruptly. “She gave it to me before she left.”

Rocket turns his head and stares at her silently.

It takes a few seconds, but she squirms. “I told her about us. About all of this. You have to believe that. I told her she had a family.”

“That ain’t enough,” says Rocket. “She’s got no idea what to do with it.”

“No,” Nebula agrees. “But I know my sister. She’ll wonder.”

“Well, yeah. I know her too. She’ll be back. I’m just worried about Quill holding it together until she does.”

“You call that holding it together?” Nebula’s lip curls.

“Like we were any better when it was fresh,” says Rocket, and that shuts her up.

“We’re going to have to fix their sex life again,” Nebula says glumly.

Rocket can’t help it; he starts to laugh, quietly at first and then harder, because fuck, it’s true. Nebula bites back a grin, and then she’s off too with an undignified snort. They sit there and they laugh, because the alternative is to scream at the unfairness of it all, and they’ve done that already. 

“Shit,” Rocket sighs when he finally manages to quit giggling. “At least you and Mantis are back in the sack, right?”

“Things are easy with Mantis,” says Nebula. “I feel things, she shares them, and I explain them. We don’t talk in code like you and Yondu and Kraglin do.”

“Hey, it works for us,” mutters Rocket.

“Until you forget the code,” she counters.

Rocket looks away. “Shut up.”

“Be careful, Rocket. Re-entry is the most dangerous part of the journey.” Nebula gives him a serious look.

“Give me her comm signature,” he says instead of dealing with that.

“She wouldn’t like that.”

“Nope, that’s why I’ll tell her I stole it. Now hand it over.”

Nebula sighs. “This is a really bad idea.” She opens her arm and taps at the keyboard inside. A second later, Rocket’s datapad lights up. “If she finds out I gave this up willingly she will kill me.”

“Relax, I got you downloaded in the ship’s memory banks,” says Rocket cheerfully.

“Great,” she mutters. “Nothing like spending the rest of my life between Quill’s music and Kraglin’s porn.”

“You ain’t seen Kraglin’s porn. You’re thinking of Drax,” says Rocket helpfully.

“That’s so much better.”

“It’s really not.”

“Why am I not surprised you looked?” Her lip curls.

“Hey, a guy gets bored sometimes. Give me a break.”

“Some things can’t be unlearned.”

“Yeah, I figured that out too.”

“Do not overwhelm her,” Nebula warns. “She’s probably going to delete your message as soon as she realizes you’re not me.”

“I’ll risk it.” Rocket glances down at his datapad. 

Nebula sighs and gets to her feet. “Good luck. And don’t ignore what I said just because you don’t want to deal with it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” mutters Rocket, and waits until she’s gone to pull up the number. 

Right about now, if she’s going by standard Nova time like them, she’ll be sound asleep. Or maybe she’ll be up with nightmares. God knows Rocket knows a thing or two about that. She’s coming fresh out of that hellhouse with no one to cushion the fall or distract her by being stupid. Rocket figures she could use the distraction.

He hits the button and holds his breath. It’s stupid, how relieved he is when it tells him to leave a message. “Hey,” he says, swallowing, “name’s Rocket. I don’t know how much Nebula told you about me, but knowing her, probably nothing useful. I’m not looking for you to call me back or anything. No pressure. Just wanted to introduce myself. And, uh, encourage you not to beat yourself up too bad. You’re a good person, in spite of your whackjob dad’s best efforts. If you don’t want me to contact you again, just tell Nebula I stole your number. She’ll kick my ass for bugging you.” He pauses. “You deserved so much better than you got in my timeline. Four years wasn’t enough. You deserved more. I hope you get ‘em now, whether it’s with us or not.”

Rocket presses the button to end the message and swallows again. That was more sincere than he usually likes to get, but he’s getting sentimental in his old age, and besides, Gamora likes that genuine shit. Maybe it’ll piss her off. Maybe it won’t. Rocket doesn’t know anymore.

He heaves himself out of the chair and goes back to his room, grateful his night vision lets him sneak in without turning the lights on. He shrugs his jacket off, and he’s sniffing around trying to determine where the clothes pile is when Kraglin clicks on the light by their bed.

“Crap,” Rocket mutters. “I wasn’t tryin’ to wake you up.”

“You forgot how light I sleep,” says Kraglin easily. He wore his ratty undershirt to bed, and Rocket feels somehow embarrassed by the way his eyes keep drifting to the chest hair peeking out the top of it.

“Ain’t used to sleeping with anyone anymore,” Rocket admits. “How the hell did I ever get used to your snoring?”

“We fucked you so hard you passed out.” Kraglin grins. 

Rocket snorts. “Yeah, that’s about what it’d take. Feels like I’m down in the engine room.” He spots the clothes pile and throws his jacket on it.

Yondu snores on, oblivious as Rocket climbs in next to Kraglin. He knows his spot is in the middle, but that don’t feel right to him anymore, so he stays on the outside. Kraglin doesn’t mention it.

“You know I was just givin’ you shit earlier, when I asked if you fucked anyone,” he says after they’ve turned the light off again. “It was supposed t’ be funny.”

“It wasn’t.” Rocket swallows. “We had a fucking funeral, you know.”

Kraglin curses softly and reaches out to curl a hand around Rocket’s hip. He goes slow, which Rocket both appreciates and doesn’t, and rubs his thumb in little circles over the good spot that makes Rocket’s leg twitch.

Rocket closes his eyes and breathes. “It’s hard to come back when you’re not sure you can trust things to stay good.”

Kraglin swallows. “Makes sense. No one likes feelin’ helpless.”

Rocket’s leg twitches again and he lets out a noise that was supposed to be a laugh. “Yeah. Helpless. Like when your kid turns to dust in front of your face while you’re reaching for him.”

“Or your husband does,” says Kraglin softly.

No. Rocket doesn’t want to hear this. He shrinks into himself just a little, squeezing his eyes shut.

“It sorta happened in a wave,” Kraglin murmurs. “We started gettin’ all sorts of distress calls, so we went for the emergency kits an’ strapped ‘em on just in case. Good thing too, that’s what saved us when we came back. Weren’t no air on the ship, you know.”

“Stop,” Rocket whispers. 

“You’re shakin’,” Kraglin whispers back.

Rocket shakes his head. He’d refused to think about how it happened for them, or who went first, or how much time they had to be afraid. If he’d thought about them reaching for each other while they crumbled like Groot, he’d kill himself. And he’s just stubborn enough that dying isn’t something he wants to do.

“Sorry,” Kraglin finally says. “Ain’t like it was fun for us either.”

“No, I know. You just got to miss most of it.” Rocket knows his voice is high and weird, but he doesn’t have to pretend to be fine in front of Kraglin.

Kraglin slowly moves closer and tugs Rocket into the circle of his arms. “I’m so fuckin’ proud of you,” he whispers against Rocket’s ear. “You found a way to beat it.”

“Didn’t fix everything.” Rocket shivers as Kraglin’s breath tickles his ear. This close, he can smell the sleep-warm scent of his skin, and it’s so good he doesn’t know what to do about it.

“Never can,” Kraglin says. “That don’t mean what you did save ain’t worth celebrating.”

Rocket carefully grips the front of Kraglin’s undershirt. It’s warm, and he curls his fingers into the fabric. “I ain’t ready to celebrate just yet.”

Kraglin nods, his beard rasping on the pillow. “Someday though.”

Rocket presses his forehead to Kraglin’s chest and just breathes him in. It’s surreal, how he can still smell himself on Kraglin’s skin after so long. It messes with his head, makes him want to relax even though he doesn’t feel safe doing it. 

Someday, Kraglin said. Rocket can work with that. But in the meantime... “I’m gonna smother him with a pillow, is that cool with you?”

Kraglin laughs.


	2. Chapter 2

The mornings are the worst. Rocket sits alone at the table, clutching his cup of coffee and staring into the empty chair that used to be Gamora’s. This used to be their time, when it was nice and quiet before everyone else woke up. They shared parenting books.

Now it’s Quill who drags himself in, looking like fresh shit with baggy eyes and a pair of ratty boxers. He didn’t even bother to put on pants this morning.

“Hey,” Rocket says as Quill fills up a coffee cup.

“Hey.” He slides into Gamora's chair. “Sorry I flipped out on everyone last night.”

Rocket shrugs. “Dude, it’s fine.”

“It’s not.” Quill’s hands tighten on his mug. “It’s really not. We were so close to getting the gauntlet off him, and I...”

“We can play the blame game all day, Quill. By the time you tried to get the gauntlet off him, Gamora was already dead. You want someone to blame? How about Nebula? If she hadn’t fucked up her assassination attempt, he might never have found out about the stones. Or hell, blame me, I built her the gun she used to try to kill him. Or Ego, because if he hadn’t been another genocidal maniac, you might still be a Celestial.”

Quill peers at him with bleary eyes. “I can’t sleep,” he admits after a minute. “All her stuff’s in our room and I can’t sleep.”

Rocket’s taken aback by the sting of tears in his eyes. “I’ll help you move,” he says around a hasty swig of coffee that burns his tongue. “We can do it right away before the others wake up.”

Quill looks down. “I don’t know if—”

“That room can be hers when she comes back,” says Rocket firmly. “We put fifteen bedrooms in this ship for a reason, now let’s get started.” He sets his coffee down on the table and hops out of the chair.

Quill follows him after a second, and they walk down the hall to the room he used to share with Gamora. He hesitates by the door, so Rocket pushes ahead of him and looks around with a critical eye.

It’s way cleaner than his bedroom; no clothes pile in sight. But then, Gamora was always a little more civilized than the Ravagers. “Put your stuff on the bed,” says Rocket. “I’ll go get a box.” When Quill nods, Rocket turns on his heel and marches to his workshop. He’s always got spare boxes in there. 

The state of the place makes him sneeze, and he rubs his nose miserably as he dusts off a few boxes. They’re gonna need masks to filter all the crap out of the air; Rocket can get started on that soon enough. First he’s gotta do his part to make sure Quill don’t lose his mind and leave him a single parent.

Rocket drags the boxes back to Quill and finds him sitting on the bed next to a small pile. He’s holding something in his hands and staring down at it.

“Don’t do this to yourself, Quill,” says Rocket, setting the boxes down and hopping up next to him.

“She made me macaroni art,” Quill says tonelessly. “Remember how we took that trip to Xandar? I told her about camp and she made me a noodle card that year for my birthday.”

Rocket looks at the crappy picture and smiles a little. Gamora was a lot of things, but an artist wasn’t one of them. “That’s sweet.”

Quill nods, bowing his head. 

Rocket stares at him. “If I tell you something, you have to promise me you’re not gonna do anything dumb.”

“Of the two of us, who here’s made more stupid decisions?” asks Quill roughly.

“Well, it was your idea to camp,” Rocket points out, “and I dunno how smart I’d be able to be in your shoes, so just...promise me, okay?”

Quill gulps. “Okay.”

“She gave Nebula her number. That door ain’t closed, not forever. She just needs space now to figure some shit out.”

“She looked through me like she didn’t even know I was there,” Quill whispers.

“Is that before or after she nailed you in the balls?” Rocket can’t help himself.

Quill pushes him off the bed. “Dick. And how long have you known that?”

“Nebula just told me last night. An’ I’m just telling you because you already promised you wouldn’t do anything stupid like try to call her.”

For a second Quill looks mutinous, but then his shoulders slump and he huffs. “No, you’re right. If I chase her, I’ll drive her off.”

“Remember how freaking weird and prickly she was at the beginning? She made you buy a fruit bowl.”

“No, she didn’t. She said the only fruit I ate was candy because I was an actual child, and I bought the fruit bowl to prove her wrong.” Quill sniffs like that’s better.

“But was she wrong?” asks Rocket slyly, knowing full well she was not.

“Dude,” mutters Quill, scowling. 

“Come on,” says Rocket, picking up a box, “quit moping and let’s do this. Being a sad bitch ain’t gonna solve any of our problems, and she’s definitely not gonna fall for you again if you turn into a depressed fat fuck with a disgusting beard who doesn’t wear pants. So we’re gonna move your shit to the room across the hall, and you’re gonna take a shower and brush your teeth ‘cause your goddamn breath stinks, and then you’re gonna shave that thing off your face. Okay?”

Quill stares at him, mouth hanging open a little. Then he swallows. “Okay.”

“Great, cool. Start loading.” Rocket shoves a box at Quill.

It takes longer than Rocket expected; turns out four years’ worth of crap on top of five years of neglect makes moving kind of a bitch. The room across the hall from Quill and Gamora’s had been used last by Martinex when he came to stay (mostly because it was the farthest from Yondu), and it’s in pretty rough shape. Quill gags as he kicks a mummified orloni out of the closet. “We gotta do something about this.”

“You want me to start on the ducts before the food replicators?” asks Rocket, staring grimly at the piles of dried shit in the corners of the room.

“I think you have to. We’re all gonna end up with some disease if we keep breathing this crap.” 

Rocket nods. “I think I can just open the hatches and let the vacuum flush it out, but let me mess with some stuff, see what’s the best way to do it.”

“I trust you.” Quill looks at him, and shit, Rocket _missed_ him. Closest thing he’s got to a brother, just like Kraglin, and having Nebula around was great but it wasn’t the same. Quill’s one of the only people Rocket ever liked right outta the gate.

Rocket looks down. “I’m glad your dumb ass is back, you know,” he says, fiddling with his scarf. It used to be Quill’s, not that anyone’s noticed. “Wasn’t as much fun without you.”

“You seemed to do okay without us.” Quill’s voice is tight.

“I did,” Rocket agrees. “Just like you did okay when you figured out there was no going back to Earth. But that don’t mean I didn’t miss you.”

Quill gives him a surprised look. “Sap,” he says after a beat.

Rocket snorts. “I learned it from you.”

“Yeah, okay, we’ll keep pretending I didn’t see you crying when we watched Beaches.” Quill forces a grin.

“I dunno how you could see anything with the way you bawled like a baby during that movie,” Rocket shoots back. “And while we’re on the subject I got some real questions about your taste in movies.”

“If this is about Footloose I’m not discussing it,” Quill sniffs. “That Spider kid already made fun of me enough.”

Rocket laughs. “Boo hoo, you got made fun of by a teenager for liking a completely mediocre movie.”

“Hey, having you losers believing Kevin Bacon was a real hero is the best long con I’ve ever pulled.”

“Long con,” Rocket scoffs. “Like you weren’t just confused and remembering shit wrong.”

“Nope.” Quill holds open the door and follows Rocket into the hallway with only a single glance at his old room. “It’s always been one hundred percent intentional.”

“You’re one hundred percent full of crap,” Rocket tells him pleasantly.

A grate falls from the ceiling behind them. Rocket freezes.

Quill whips around, gun out and paranoia clear on his face. They wait, but nothing else happens.

“That was weird, right?” Rocket asks.

Quill’s nostrils flare. “It’s nothing,” he says after a second. “Orloni probably compromised it.”

“Yeah.” Rocket narrows his eyes and sniffs. “You remember to take your shampoo out of the shower in there?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I can smell it, that’s all. Make sure it ain’t leaking all over a box somewhere.”

“You saw me clean that bathroom,” says Quill.

“Like that means anything,” Rocket mutters.

“Don’t be a douche,” Quill mumbles, holstering his gun. “Come on, let’s go see if we can’t patch the water tank.” He turns away and starts down the hall.

Rocket stares hard at the grate, but eventually follows.

—

They can’t patch the water tank. This is bad news, because it turns out that lots of other people reappeared in dilapidated ships and houses and there’s a huge run on manufactured goods. 

“Your dad was a fucking idiot,” Kraglin hisses at Nebula when they sit down later to eat more frozen food. “He ever bother learnin’ a damn thing about economics? Or was the price gouging part o’ the plan?”

“He genuinely believed wiping out half of everything would solve the universe’s problems. What do you think?” Nebula shoots back sourly.

Yondu snorts. “This ain’t the first time we’ve had t’ scavenge,” he says. “Plenty of abandoned ships out there, still.” 

Thor glances at him. “There’s no honor in stealing from the dead.”

“Depends on th’ Code you keep.” Yondu gives him a crooked grin. “This ain’t no pleasure cruise, Your Highness.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t call me that,” says Thor stiffly. “I abdicated.”

“‘S one thing we got in common then.” Yondu nods. “An’ with all that hair o’ yours, we’re gonna need a second water tank t’ keep it clean.”

“But for now,” Quill interrupts, “we use the same rules as on the M-ships. If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.”

Thor blanches.

“It’s a metaphor,” Drax tells him helpfully. “The yellow is—”

“I got it, thanks.” Thor’s smile is strained.

Kraglin snorts. “I’ll start scannin’ for empty ships, Pete. See what we can find.”

“Good.” Quill nods. “Then we focus on cleanup. Rocket’s working on a plan to flush the ducts, and everyone else, we’ll divide the ship into sections. First priority is getting the living spaces cleared out. Yondu and Kraglin started on that, but there’s still a lot to do. Once those are under control we can work on getting the food replicators back up. Clean air, more water, fresh food. That’s what we need.” He looks around seriously.

“If you need money I can send back to Earth for coin,” Thor offers, and Rocket puts his face in his hands.

Quill, Yondu, and Kraglin all slowly turn to stare at him.

“You don’t offer Ravagers charity,” says Nebula shortly. “They take it as an insult.”

“Oh.” Thor’s eyes widen. “None intended, I assure you. I merely heard you talking of price gouging, and thought I would contribute.”

“Well, that’s really generous of you,” says Quill in a tone that makes it clear he thinks it’s anything but, “but we do okay on our own.”

“I’ve offended your pride,” says Thor. “For that I am sorry.” He gets to his feet and holds out a hand. “I want there to be nothing but friendship between us.”

Quill stares at the hand like there’s shit on it, but finally takes it. Rocket doesn’t bother to look up; he can hear the bones creaking as Thor smiles in Quill’s face and squeezes his hand. Quill’s eye twitches, but he holds on and takes it.

Kraglin scoots his chair back loudly, making everyone jump as it scrapes across the floor; Quill takes the opportunity to jerk his hand back. “Which rooms are we focused on clearin’ out again?” Kraglin asks lightly. “Didn’t say which one he’s usin’.”

Quill smiles. 

“Don’t you got a bridge shift right about now?” Yondu asks pointedly.

“I am Groot,” Groot says.

Kraglin eyes Thor. “You’re right, kid. We are on together. Come on, let’s go get us a new water tank.” He rests a hand on Groot’s shoulder, but he keeps his eyes on Thor until they leave.

Nebula’s staring at Rocket. He knows because he can feel his skin crawl. Luckily, he’s been ignoring her creepy staring for nine years now, and he says, “Thor, we don’t need your money, but I could use your help on some of the hatches.”

“What do you mean?” Thor turns away from where he’s pleasantly staring Quill down. 

“I mean that to flush the ducts, we’re gonna have to turn off the water and open every hatch simultaneously, and some of ‘em are rusted shut. Can you help with that?” 

“Probably.”

“Cool.” Rocket’s timed this so that Kraglin is on the bridge and far away from the airlock controls, because he knows his husband and he doesn’t want any accidents. “We can get started right now.”

Thor follows him out of the kitchen and down to the lower levels. After a few minutes of silence he says, “so at the risk of sounding very foolish, how exactly is everyone here related?”

Rocket sighs. “Yondu and Kraglin raised Quill, only Kraglin was barely ten years older than Quill was when they picked him up, so he’s more like an older brother than a stepdad.”

“And you’re married to Kraglin.” Thor shakes his head. “You never said anything.”

“Like you don’t talk about your dead brother?” Rocket asks flatly.

Thor winces. “Yes, well. Only you talked about the rest of them. Quill and the others. Why not your husband?”

“Husbands. Yondu an’ Kraglin were a two-for-one deal.” Rocket won’t look at him. “You remember the time me an’ Nebula went viral doin’ karaoke?”

“Yeah.” Thor grins. “Bruce sent me the video. You’re actually rather good.”

“You read the comments?”

Thor looks uneasy now. “Online comments are usually full of negativity. I try to avoid them.”

“Right. Well, how about the way you kept callin’ me a rabbit?”

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” Thor says quickly. “If it upset you, you should have said something, Rocket, I would have—”

“The point is I look like an animal an’ I didn’t want people havin’ opinions on the fact that I got a sex life,” Rocket snaps.

That shuts Thor up.

“Losin’ everyone was bad enough, I didn’t wanna deal with that shit on top of it.” Rocket stops at one of the hatches and pulls two emergency space suits off the wall. He tosses one at Thor. “I know you don’t need that, but humor me.”

Thor sighs and clips it on while Rocket does his. He’s quiet for a bit, letting Rocket adjust and readjust things on his belt. “So you’re married to Quill’s parents,” he finally says.

Rocket laughs. “Just his dad.”

“Didn’t he say he killed his father?”

“Ego might have been his father, but Yondu’s his daddy. Raised him since he was eight when he picked him up to keep him away from that nutjob.” Now that they’re both suited up, Rocket closes the inside airlock and tries the hatch. Nothing.

Thor watches the door for a second in case something interesting happens, and then says, “and the tree. You’re his father?”

“Yep. Me an’ Quill. And Gamora was his mom.” Rocket pauses and swallows before he pushes the airlock again. “Hold onto something, will you?”

Thor obediently grabs a handle on the wall. “So you’re raising a tree with a couple, while you’re married to another couple?”

“That a problem?” Rocket smiles with a lot of teeth.

“You know me better than that. I just want to make sure I understand.”

There’s a grinding, but the door won’t open. “Shit, that’s right. This is the one I meant to look at before we got your damn distress call.” Rocket makes sure the door’s controls are set on closed and goes over to it. There’d been something wrong with it for awhile, but it wasn’t as well used as the hatches close to the hangar and waste shoots, so he’d stuck it on the back burner. 

Thor lets go of the handle and runs a hand over the seal on the hatch. It comes away covered with grime. “Seems as though it’s disintegrated.”

“Which means we gotta replace it.” Rocket closes his eyes and swears. “Okay,” he says after a deep breath, “we’re just gonna have to work around it. Let’s check out the next one.”

Thor nods. “Maybe it’s better,” he says after a bit, “keeping busy, you know? Takes the mind off things.”

Rocket glances at him. “I know what you mean.” He hadn’t been as close to Tony as the others were—as Nebula was—but Natasha hit him hard. Her death is all tangled up with Gamora’s, and hearing about that cliff, and thinking of them both broken at the bottom...

He shudders. 

“Anyway, I don’t suppose you can tell me why Quill hates me so much? Not that it isn’t amusing, but...”

Rocket stops walking. “It’s gonna get a lot less funny when you get a knife in your back because Kraglin’s sick of you messin’ with his kid brother.”

“I didn’t start it,” Thor points out.

“You ain’t ending it either.” Rocket gives him a narrow glare. “Do yourself a favor, Thor. Don’t piss off the Ravagers.”

Thor doesn’t look as concerned as Rocket thinks he should be, but whatever. He’ll learn, whether it’s with a knife in his ass or a shit streak on his bath towel. Kraglin’s creative that way.

The next hatch is rusty, but the seal holds. Rocket’s satisfied enough with that to let Thor send a hard streak of lightning along the metal while he hovers in midair away from any conductors.

“Yeah, that blasted most of the crap off it,” he says happily.

The wall comm lights up and Kraglin’s voice demands, “what the hell was that?”

“The god of thunder,” Rocket answers him with a grin. “He’s hell on the sensors, but I got this.”

There’s a pause. “If you say so, princess.”

Rocket avoids Thor’s eyes so he doesn’t have to slap him for mouthing ‘princess?’ with a big stupid grin on his face.

“We’re good here, baby,” he says instead of throwing something at Thor.

“Got it.” Kraglin ends the call.

“Let’s go to the next one,” says Rocket.

“Of course, princess,” Thor says solemnly.

“I’m gonna punch you in the dick.”

“Hardly ladylike behavior.”

“Don’t you have a bowling game to get to or something, Lebowski?”

They bicker the rest of the way through the hatches on this level, and Rocket’s pleased to note that aside from the one with the fucked up seal that he should have replaced five years ago instead of upgrading the sound systems again, they all look good. A pressure wash will take care of any grime Thor didn’t clean off, and that’s one thing to check off the list. “Tomorrow we do the next level.”

“This is quite a large ship for so few of you,” muses Thor.

“Mm. Used to be part of Yondu’s warship. We escaped in this one after he killed off his crew.”

Thor frowns. “Why did he kill his crew?”

“Mutiny.” Rocket should really bust out some of the old songs. He and Nebula retired them by unspoken agreement, but with some exceptions, he thinks he might be ready to try them out again. He absently hums the opening chords to Come a Little Bit Closer as he taps calculations into his datapad.

“Sounds like quite the tale.”

“Almost as epic as your battle with that Fortnite troll,” says Rocket without looking up.

“He was an unworthy opponent.”

“So was Taserface.”

Thor stares at him. “His name was Taserface? Did he shoot tasers out of his face?”

“It was metaphorical,” says Rocket.

“For what?”

“For a moronic shitbag who thought it was a cool name.” Rocket grins as the equations yield the results he was looking for. “We might not be totally screwed after all!” He slaps the comm to tell Quill.

Turns out they can flush the ducts without opening all the hatches, and the flow of air escaping through the Quadrant will get all the areas in one swoop. It’s great news for Rocket, and for everyone else who’s feeling overwhelmed by the amount of dust and orloni detritus. 

So they get to work strapping things down, and seal off nonessential parts of the ship so they don’t burn through their stash of oxygen before they can buy or raid more, and if Rocket occasionally catches a whiff of Gamora’s body wash coming from the far end of the hall, he keeps that to himself.

The dead don’t come back. He learned that a long time ago, and the only ghosts that exist are the ones people invent themselves. Besides, loads of people died on the Quadrant; plenty of them by Rocket’s hand. He’d never be able to sleep here if he worried about dead Ravagers watching him snore.

Which means someone’s actually here, although he can’t detect shit when he scans for lifeforms beyond the usual. It’s damned eerie. Normally he’d go straight to Quill, but the poor bastard has enough on his plate and he barely sleeps. Neither does Rocket, but that’s because he married a Centaurian chainsaw and a wheezy Xandarian.

He catches another whiff in his workshop the day before the flush is planned; his ears twitch, although he can’t hear anything. He takes a slow breath through his nose, following the scent as it drifts through the room. Casually, he reaches out to turn down the music. “If you’re lookin’ for the space suits, I don’t keep ‘em here.”

The scent stops moving.

Rocket’s whiskers fluff up in satisfaction. Score one for the raccoon. “If you got something you wanna ask for, you should grow some balls and quit skulking around.”

He’s seen plenty of crazy shit in his life, but it’s still a shock when the guy appears in front of him in the space between heartbeats.

“What gave it away?” asks Loki, because this gangly fucker can only be Thor’s magic brother.

Rocket taps his nose. “You’ve been usin’ Gamora’s shampoo.”

Loki’s lip curls like he’s annoyed with himself. “I didn’t think about smell,” he admits, rallying. He tries for a winning smile. “You’re rather good.”

Rocket quirks an eyebrow as he hits the button on his comm so the others can hear this. “You owe us money, freeloader.”

“I’m sure we can come to an agreement,” Loki says smoothly.

“I’m sure we can,” Rocket agrees with a smile. “It’s just that I’m a little perplexed, sir, about what it is you think you have to offer us.”

Loki doesn’t miss a beat. “I can assist you in getting whatever materials you need to repair this...” he pauses, “lovely ship.”

“Usually Ravagers give stowaways a choice,” Rocket says instead of answering. “You join the crew to work off your debts or they drop you off. We sure could use someone to scrub all the orloni shit.”

Loki makes a face. “As generous as that offer is, I think I’ll decline. You can drop me off at your next stop.”

Rocket grins. “Who said anything about stopping?”

Thor bursts into the room, barreling into Loki to wrap him up in a big bear hug. “ _Brother._ ” 

Loki looks like a wet cat, squirming and pushing uselessly on Thor’s face.

“What the fuck?” That’s Quill, standing in the doorway with Nebula and Yondu behind him. “Who the hell is this guy?”

“The brother,” Nebula says. “So he’s alive.”

Thor’s ignoring Loki’s weak shoving and pressing his cheek tight against his dark hair. “Three times now you’ve fooled me into believing you were dead. Never again, Loki, do you hear me?”

“I don’t—Thor, let me go!”

“No,” says Thor, but he pulls back to stare into Loki’s face intently while he grips the back of his neck. “How are you alive?”

Loki looks uncomfortable. “Ah, that’s a rather delicate set of circumstances—”

“ _Start talking,_ ” growls Thor, and there’s an echo of thunder in his voice.

Loki gulps. “Fine, I took the Tesseract when Stark had his heart attack.”

Nebula tenses at the mention of Tony, and Rocket’s fists clench. “And when was this?” he asks.

Loki’s eyes dart to him. “2012,” he answers after a second.

Thor’s expression freezes. “So you...” He lets go of Loki and takes a step back. “You don’t remember Mother or Father or Sakaar.”

“Sakaar’s a shitheap,” Yondu says to no one in particular.

Loki’s lip curls. “I haven’t had the pleasure, no.”

“You’re not my Loki,” says Thor hollowly. “Not the brother I lost.”

“You’re hardly the Thor I remember either,” says Loki, looking down to fiddle with his clothes. “Why aren’t you wearing pants?”

Thor looks embarrassed. “Drax suggested we spar, and his workout pants were a little too tight for me.”

“I have a perfectly formed ass,” Drax says solemnly; Rocket’s gonna smack Kraglin for leaning over to look.

“His pants fit me!” says Quill quickly. “We did a pants swap, his perfect ass pants fit me!”

Yondu stares at Quill for a second and then shakes his head in despair. 

“It’s like everything I hoped for came to pass,” Loki murmurs, gazing up at Thor. “Father is dead, Asgard destroyed.” He pauses. “You got fat.”

“Hey, lay off,” says Rocket. “He just wants his rug back.”

“It really ties the room together,” adds Nebula.

Rocket nods.

“He was proud of you,” Thor whispers. “At the end. He and Mother both were.” Loki turns away, but Thor grabs his arm and wrenches him back. “It’s just us now,” Thor insists. “There’s no throne left to fight over. There’s no one else, Loki. Just us. We’re all we have left.”

Loki stares at him, emotions warring openly on his face. 

“And I don’t care if you aren’t the same,” Thor says fiercely. “You’re my brother. You’ll always be my brother. We’re the only family we have.”

“We’re not even the same race,” Loki points out.

“What the hell’s that got to do with anything?” asks Quill; when Thor and Loki both look at him, he huffs. “I mean, none of us are the same species.”

“It’s true,” says Thor. “The tree is his son.”

“And mine,” says Rocket before he can stop himself.

Loki slowly turns to stare at Rocket.

“Don’t ask a lot of questions about how they’re all related,” says Thor. “It’s really weird.”

“I can see that for myself, thanks,” says Loki slowly.

“Stay with me, Loki,” Thor says softly. “I think the world of you.”

Loki gives Thor a narrow glare. “It suits me to stay here for now,” he finally says, and holds up a finger. “No promises, Thor.”

Nebula, as always, is the practical one. “Where is the space stone?” she asks him flatly.

Loki blinks at her in polite confusion. “I’m sorry?”

Her eyes narrow. “The stone. You said you stole it from Tony. Where is it now?”

“Oh.” He smiles broadly. “Not to worry, I know exactly where it is.”

“Loki,” says Thor quietly, “you know how dangerous the stones are.”

Rocket’s thinking. “Too bad you couldn’t have swiped the reality stone so we could fix the damn ship with it,” he says sourly.

Loki peers at him. “You’re very pragmatic.”

“And you’re a pain in my ass. So much for the integrity of the timelines. Steve fucked up.”

“Steve earned his peace,” Thor says, looking away.

Rocket scoffs. “But now we got a duplicate space stone on our hands and that ain’t something I wanna be responsible for.”

“Actually...” Loki looks embarrassed. “I don’t have it.”

Nebula steps up and stares into his face with the full murder glare. “Explain,” she bites out.

Thor stands at Loki’s back, looking between him and Nebula. Rocket hopes it doesn’t come to a fight, because there’s no way Thor will side with them over his brother.

Loki must decide she’s not messing around, because he huffs. “He found me last week and he took it away from me. I was informed that he’d let me stay because of what I mean to Thor, but when I tried to renegotiate he trapped me under Mjolnir and took it. Are you happy?”

“No,” says Nebula, but the tension goes out of her shoulders.

“So you’ve just been...hanging out all this time?” asks Quill. “What is even happening here?”

“He’s like Gamora,” says Rocket. “He jumped timelines.”

The sound of her name makes Quill turn away. “Got it,” he says shortly.

“You’re cap’n,” Kraglin tells him softly. “It’s your call, Pete.”

Quill stiffens when he feels everyone’s eyes on his back. He takes a deep breath. “You can stay for now,” he finally says. “But you better contribute. Ain’t no free rides on this ship, you hear me?”

“Startin’ t’ sound like your old man,” Yondu murmurs, smirking.

Quill scowls at him. “Okay, everyone, back to work. Kraglin’s found us a lead on a water tank, so we’re heading that way. Rocket, we still on schedule for the flush?”

“Yep.”

“Good.” Quill gives Loki a hard look. “You get the room next to Nebula and Mantis. You got any stuff, move it in there and strap it down.”

Loki doesn’t look anymore impressed with Quill than Thor does, but he says, “I understand.”

Quill nods and turns to Mantis. “If he tries anything, knock him out.”

“Yes Peter.” She nods seriously.

Rocket meets Nebula’s eyes across the room and sees his own exasperation mirrored there.


	3. Chapter 3

So they flush the ducts. Rocket’s got everyone in a space suit, and there are extras on hand in case of emergencies. They strap themselves in and when Quill gives the word, Rocket opens the hatches.

It’s always eerie, watching the air rush out of a ship with no sound. Rocket knows Groot still has phobias about the void after having to watch Taserface and his goons space so many guys when he was little, and Yondu ain’t a fan either for obvious reasons. Kraglin keeps an iron grip on his wrist until everything goes still. 

Rocket listens to his own breathing and nods to Quill. Then he repressurizes the parts of the ship they’re gonna keep using and watches the oxygen. It takes awhile before they get up to safe levels, but when they do he gives a thumbs up and deactivates his space suit.

“Air already smells cleaner,” says Quill. “Good job, Rocket.”

Rocket nods. “Our oxygen will stretch for another month if we keep the lower decks sealed off,” he says. “Otherwise we gotta find another job.”

“At least we will not have to pay for the water tank if we loot it,” says Mantis optimistically. “Maybe there will be oxygen on the abandoned ships as well.”

“That’s the spirit, Bug,” Kraglin tells her. “An’ Pete, we’re eighty-nine kliks from a lead. We wanna go?”

“Yeah.” Quill stands up and stretches. “No time like the present.”

Yondu gets up and follows Groot down to the front of the bridge so they can both stare out the big window. He puts a hand on Groot’s shoulder and stands next to him without saying anything.

Rocket watches them. One of his favorite things about Yondu has always been the way he is with Groot. In some other timeline where the Kree never got him Rocket can picture him living a life full of chubby blue babies. The guy’s a sucker for kids and cute stuff in general. It’s...charming.

It’s also exactly what Groot needs right now, since he’s been withdrawing into himself ever since he got the news about Gamora. The kid needs someone to stay the same for him, and as much as Rocket wishes he and Quill could do that, they can’t. Rocket’s love for Groot is the simplest thing in the universe, but this ain’t something he can fix for the kid. He knows all too well that getting a replacement isn’t the same as holding the original in your arms.

He looks away and catches Quill doing the same thing. Quill offers him a crooked, miserable smile; Rocket can’t help but smile back. “We’re kinda sucking at this dad thing right now,” he says quietly.

“We could be worse,” Quill counters.

“No shit.” Rocket thinks of Gamora and knows Quill is too. 

“We should have a funeral,” Quill finally says, so low Rocket can barely hear him. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

“I gave you all the rites and the colors,” Rocket tells him softly. “It was pretty pathetic, considering there weren’t any bodies to burn, but—”

Quill shakes his head. “We weren’t there,” he says. There’s something ferocious in his voice, but he keeps the volume low. 

Now Rocket gets it. He bows his head. “You’re right. Now that we know what stuck and what didn’t, you’re totally right.”

He’d sent another message to Gamora last night, because Nebula hasn’t shown up to tell him to quit it. Nothing big, just letting her know the standard fuel prices per gallon so she doesn’t get ripped off. And maybe he sent her a link for if she wants to start learning Groot. But he’s keeping things short. Giving her space.

They can’t ask her to step into the role her dead self played. That’s just unfair. No way will Gamora want to come home if it’s haunted by who she would have been. They’ve got to let their Gamora go.

“She died on Vormir,” Rocket says after they’re quiet for a second. “We oughta have it there.” If what Clint said is true, there’s some nasty magic in that place, and Rocket doesn’t know shit about that kind of stuff, but he does know that love and family are the most powerful things in the universe. Throwing that at whatever bad juju lives on Vormir can’t hurt things.

Quill looks upset, but god knows he’s got reason to be. “You ever find out how it happened?” he asks tightly. 

Rocket flinches. Since Quill’s not a moron, he catches it and sinks back into his chair. “How bad was it?” he asks. His voice ain’t quite steady.

Rocket stares out at the void. “I’ve never seen it, but Clint—you met him for a second, he’s the one with the bad tattoos—went there to get the soul stone with Natasha.” He looks down at his hands. _Natasha,_ who held the Avengers together as fiercely as Gamora held the Guardians. It’s so wrong that both of them died there. They’d have liked each other, he thinks. “It’s a cliff,” he finally says gruffly. “You need to sacrifice a soul for a soul. He threw her off a cliff.”

Quill buries his face in his hands. “ _I told her to go right,_ ” he whispers. “Jesus Christ, she tried so hard to get away from him, and then...”

“She did get away from him,” Rocket says harshly. “She died a Guardian. Not a daughter of Thanos.”

Quill raises his red blotchy face and takes a shaky breath. Finally he nods, and Rocket’s relieved to see some of the steel come back into his eyes. “Then we send her off like a Guardian.”

Rocket nods too. “Right after we get our water tank.”

It’s a merchant ship they come up on a few hours later, drifting dark at the edge of a bright pink nebula. The instruments show it holding steady, but they can’t see it until they’re right on top of it.

“Remaining crew must’ve abandoned it after,” Kraglin mutters.

“I am surprised the company wouldn’t try to retrieve their cargo,” says Drax.

“Not enough people, probably.” Rocket starts to scan.

Yondu’s eyes narrow. “Li’l sister,” he says quietly.

Nebula looks over. 

“How many guns you got packed on the _Benatar?_ ” he asks.

“You think it’s a trap.” Quill steps up next to him.

“It’s a perfect place for an ambush,” says Thor. “They can hide in the nebula and wait for us.”

Rocket looks at Nebula and finds her looking back grimly. “This is probably a good time to mention that there’s been some shit goin’ down with the Ravagers.”

“I was wonderin’ when you were gonna bring that up,” says Yondu without looking at him. “Aleta called as soon as she got her mutiny handled. Half the clans are in open rebellion an’ the _Starhawk_ ain’t completely back under control neither.”

Quill looks stunned. “Why didn’t you say anything?” he demands.

The look Yondu gives him is gentle. “We’re a proxy clan. This don’t have to be our fight if we don’t want it, an’ I figure you’ve done enough.”

“You don’t make that decision for me,” Quill says in a low voice. “I’m the captain here, Yondu. What would you have done if your crew kept something like this from you?”

“My crew weren’t never lookin’ out for me like I am for you,” Yondu shoots back. “If I’d tried walkin’ around broken-hearted like you been doin’ they’d have knifed me in the back an’ taken the ship.”

Kraglin looks away, and so does Nebula. Rocket doesn’t, because that mutiny wasn’t even a little his fault.

Loki watches the exchange with some interest, but looks away all aloof when he catches Mantis staring at him.

“You should’ve said something,” says Quill flatly. “We already know what happens when you keep secrets from me.”

Yondu sighs. “Fine. I should’ve told you. But I’m tellin’ you now, because if this is a trap, we gotta be prepared for a fully crewed galleon. Or we can keep lookin’. There’s other ships floatin’ out here.”

“I am Groot,” says Groot, his eyes shining with bloodlust.

“What else did Aleta say?” Quill asks.

Yondu exchanges a look with Kraglin, and finally says, “orders are to execute Code breakers.”

Everyone gets really quiet at that.

Yondu runs a hand over his beard. “You just got done fightin’ a war,” he says. “Ain’t fair to ask you t’ jump into another one.”

“We haven’t even given our dead the rites,” Rocket reminds him. He didn’t want the last fight either; he’d taken Groot and gone with Thor because he’d wanted to keep out of it. 

With a start, he realizes he’s terrified. The thought of taking them into battle where they could die— _again—_ scares him like nothing else.

But if he says anything now, it looks like he’s undermining Quill, and after Yondu’s already done that in front of Thor and Loki it’ll just make Quill dig his heels in. He realizes he’s breathing hard, just like he used to when he’d get bad flashbacks, and he’s gripping the armrests hard enough to punch through the fabric with his claws.

“We’re short a co-captain.” It’s Nebula who speaks up. “Rocket and I are out of practice fighting as a unit, Thor’s out of practice fighting in general, and I don’t trust his brother not to stab us in the back.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“She’s right, we can’t trust him,” says Thor plainly. He gives Loki a regretful smile. “I wish I could, but you have to earn it.”

Loki crosses his arms with a huff and looks away. “It’s in my best interests to ensure that everyone on this ship bathes,” he says snidely, giving Kraglin a look.

Kraglin raises his eyebrows.

”Kraglin doesn’t bathe even when we have water,” says Drax. 

Loki curls his lip, so Rocket snaps, “watch it. I like how he smells.” It makes everyone’s faces scrunch up all funny and lets him catch his breath.

Finally Quill puffs his cheeks out. “We’ll hang back,” he finally says. “No one’s attacked us yet, so we back out of range and we wait. Which ship in the fleet has the longest-range guns?”

“Stakar’s,” says Yondu after a moment.

“And how far can he shoot?”

“Half a klik,” Yondu answers. 

“Then we back up half a klik and we see if anyone follows us.” Quill looks around. “Nebula, you’re on watch tonight. Anything happens, you call me first.”

Nebula nods and takes her seat at the navs. 

“The rest of us can work on getting the last of the cleaning done. I’ll take the kitchen. Drax, you and Mantis can work out who gets the gym and who gets the living room.”

“I call gym!” Mantis announces, making Drax groan. 

Rocket lets out a slow breath as they retreat, but he can’t fully relax while that nebula is within sight. He knows damn well that their caution might give a Ravager ship pause, but not for long. In spite of how it looks, the Quadrant’s not a warship; they don’t have the guns to fight off a fleet of M-ships and an armed galleon. The only way they’d stand a chance is if they got on board.

Nebulas obscure instruments. There’s no way to tell what’s in there. Rocket glares out the window at the dense pink swirls, hating this crapsack of a situation and the purple fucker who put them here.

Yondu’s hand lands on the back of his neck, thick fingers scratching through the fur there. Rocket’s had enough time to adjust to the scent of him that he’s not hypervigilant anymore, but it still makes him tense when people who aren’t Nebula touch him. At least Yondu always approaches slow; Rocket went off on Kraglin yesterday about touching him with no warning. 

He’s pretty sure Kraglin’s pissed at him about that, but maybe not. It’s been awhile since he’s had to navigate Kraglin’s moods, after all.

“You trust me an’ Krags t’ clean the place on our own?” Yondu asks with a little smile.

Rocket looks up. “About as far as I can punt you,” he says with a little smile of his own.

“Then I guess you better come help.”

“I guess I better,” Rocket echoes, and follows Yondu back to their room.

Being back in here fucks with his head, although it gets easier every day. His own scent, and Yondu and Kraglin’s, have started soaking into the place again, making it feel more like home. Rocket looks around with a sigh.

“It’ll sink in eventually,” Yondu tells him.

Rocket’s ear flicks in his direction. “I was mostly thinkin’ how empty it looks in here without the clothes pile.”

Yondu snorts. “Don’t push too hard tryin’ t’ make the rest of us feel better,” he says, ignoring Rocket’s attempt to dodge his point. “It ain’t gonna feel right yet. Not til you start believin’ this ain’t gonna get yanked away from you all over again.”

Rocket pauses. “You’ve been through this too.” Of course he has; Yondu spent the first twenty years of his life as a slave. God, they really are the same. He looks down at his feet. “How long did it take you?”

Yondu rubs his nose. “Well, I hid in my room for a couple weeks. Wouldn’t talk t’ nobody except Stakar, even though Marty an’ Charlie kept tryin’. Almost killed Aleta when she slapped me on th’ back, I think that’s why she took t’ me. It was about a month before I started thinkin’ I might not have t’ go back.”

“A month.” Rocket closes his eyes. “I hate it. I hate how my life don’t feel like my life anymore. I hate that I can’t relax in my own home because I’m always worried something’s gonna take it away like—” he snaps his fingers. “I hate that I’m never gonna get back all that time I lost.”

“That I understand.” Yondu sits down heavily.

Rocket hugs himself and studies him, looking over every line on his weathered face. “I don’t like knowin’ I can live without all of you,” he confesses after a minute, because Yondu won’t get his feelings all hurt like Kraglin or Quill would. 

“Makes me feel a little better though,” Yondu tells him. “‘S one o’ the things I like best about you. You’re a survivor.”

“I couldn’t let myself miss you.” There. It’s out. Rocket looks at the ground. “Thor didn’t know I was married. I didn’t talk about you, I didn’t think about you. I shut it off. That’s why I can’t get it back, Yondu.”

“Like I said.” Yondu shrugs. “You gonna hold it against anyone else, what they did t’ cope?”

“Quit makin’ so much sense, I’m trying to feel bad here,” mumbles Rocket.

“I ain’t lettin’ you go around bein’ a sad bitch over shit that ain’t your fault. Feelin’ guilty over livin’ is stupid, an’ you’re not.”

Rocket shakes his head. “It just feels like I should be able to control this, you know?”

“We both know it don’t work like that. It ain’t ever goin’ away for good, either. You been through somethin’ big an’ things can’t go back to how they were before. An’ don’t think I don’t know you’ve been buildin’ us up in your head all those years, boy.” Yondu fixes Rocket with a beady look.

Someday Rocket’s gonna stop being blown away by how well Yondu’s got his number, but today ain’t it. He looks down, embarrassed. “If you mean I forgot how bad you stink up the bathroom, then yeah, I did.” 

Yondu sniffs in a lame attempt at dignity. “I heard you been bitchin’ about my snorin’ too, an’ let me just tell you it ain’t exactly a treat gettin’ scratched ‘cause you’re havin’ nightmares either.”

“Sorry,” Rocket mutters.

“I’ll take the claw marks if it means you’re here,” Yondu says honestly. He eyes Rocket for a moment. “Come here.”

Rocket bites his lip, but goddammit, he wants to, so he crawls into Yondu’s lap and rests his nose right in Yondu’s neck where his scent is strongest. It’s like a drug; he could roll in it like catnip until he’s all drunk and stupid. His claws dig into Yondu’s shirt as he hauls himself as close as possible.

“You don’t have t’ pretend in here,” Yondu murmurs in that low, scratchy voice that can still make Rocket melt. He rests a hand on Rocket’s lower back, weighing him down and keeping him steady.

Rocket huffs a breath through his open mouth, letting his eyes slip closed. “You smell so fucking good,” he whispers.

Yondu’s chuckle rumbles through his whole body. “Take a good whiff. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

Rocket only wishes that was something Yondu could promise. But he holds on, because fuck, the universe has tried to take this asshole from him twice now and they’re still together, so that’s got to count for something, right?

“You know what you need?” asks Yondu after a few minutes of Rocket quietly mouthbreathing like a freak. “You need a blowjob.”

Rocket stills. “I ain’t so sure that’s a good idea,” he says; he can feel his heart start racing at the thought, and he can’t tell if it’s fear or excitement.

“No? I ain’t talkin’ about a sweet fuck from your husband.” Yondu tweaks the base of Rocket’s tail and makes him jump. “I was thinkin’ somethin’ quick an’ dirty t’ break the ice after a dry spell.”

And that makes Rocket smile, because there’s a logic to that. After all, the first time they did this Rocket wasn’t exactly overthinking things. A nasty quickie might take the pressure off his first time back. Get him used to feeling sexy again. “Tell me more about what you were thinkin’,” he says, toying with one of the buckles on Yondu’s vest. He’s not sure if he can go through with it, but it might not hurt anything.

Yondu snorts. “Depends on how much cleanin’ we actually gotta do,” he says, and Rocket groans.

“It’s official,” he says. “We’ve really become that boring. We’re the people who try to work in sex around chores.”

Yondu makes a face. “Yeah, well, don’t tell nobody. We got a reputation t’ maintain.”

“What reputation? You were sleeping in the chair like an old fogey when Quill told us to get married.” Rocket grins.

“That’s some way t’ talk to a guy who’s offerin’ to suck your dick,” Yondu says.

“Oh, like you’re only offering for my benefit?” Rocket’s face is starting to hurt; he doesn’t think he’s smiled this much in the last five years.

“If you’re tryin’ to insinuate that I’m some kinda slut who likes suckin’ cock then you’re absolutely right.” Yondu grins back at him. “So how about it, darlin’?”

Rocket leans up to very carefully lick the underside of Yondu’s chin, savoring the taste and the feel of his stubble scraping under his tongue. “Soon,” he says quietly when Yondu tips his head back. “Not yet, okay?”

Yondu’s hands tighten briefly on Rocket’s body. “You want me t’ keep askin’ or did you wanna surprise me?”

Rocket grins. “Keep asking. It’s kinda nice knowin’ you’re into me.”

“Like you had reason t’ doubt it.” Yondu nuzzles the top of Rocket’s head. “You an’ me, we’re the same. Ain’t enough time or space t’ change that, boy.”

Rocket squeezes his eyes shut. “Shit,” he whispers. “Yondu, I lo—”

Yondu clamps a hand over his mouth. “What the hell, don’t you go jinxin’ it now,” he says hastily. He actually looks a little alarmed.

Rocket snorts and nips at his fingers until he takes his hand away. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I ain’t so great with the usual ways we say it right now.”

Yondu gives him an exasperated look. “You mean like findin’ a way to undo the fuckin’ Infinity Stones? That ain’t clear enough for ya? Terra really does rot brains.”

Rocket has to bite back a smile. “Won’t do it again,” he mumbles.

“I mean, if ya feel like a gotta.” But Yondu looks unnerved.

Rocket licks Yondu’s mouth just to watch his pupils dilate. It’s an ego boost he’s forgotten he missed.

“Fuckin’ tease,” says Yondu roughly, but he gives Rocket a crooked smile.

That’s when Nebula’s voice crackles to life on the wall comm. “Everyone get up here. We have a situation.”

—

“Shit.”

That’s Quill’s assessment of the Ravager galleon that’s finally come lumbering out of the nebula. They’re all assembled on the bridge of the Quadrant, grimly staring at the guns aimed in their direction.

“It could be worse,” says Nebula. “The captain hailed me. He said we’ll have the option of surrender.”

“They’re pirates! Of course we have the option of surrender!” Quill rolls his eyes.

“I don’t actually think he knows who we are,” she says delicately.

Yondu narrows his eyes. “That’s not a ship I recognize.”

“Even if it was, plenty of jerks took over and replaced crews,” says Rocket grimly. “With people who don’t care much about the Code.”

Yondu grinds his teeth; Rocket thinks about telling him to quit it since they’re already in rough enough shape, but common sense prevails. Yondu’s love for the Code is the only thing that compares to his love for Quill, and he’s pissed about this. 

Quill’s got his thinking face on. “So they think this is just another mark,” he muses. “Nebula, how much time did they give us to respond?”

She levels him with a flat look. “You have five more minutes to come up with a plan that doesn’t get us killed.”

“We’re all going to die again,” says Mantis glumly.

Nebula sets her jaw. “Not if I can help it.”

“Dude!” Quill looks offended. “My plans usually work.”

“Unless you lose your temper and ruin everything,” says Drax.

“This coming from the guy who tried to singlehandedly fight an entire army,” says Rocket sourly.

“How do they intend to rob us?” asks Loki.

“Keep us pinned by their guns until they can clamp on,” Quill tells him. “Once they’re clamped on and we’ve got a chance at hand-to-hand, we can take them.”

“We’re vastly outnumbered,” Loki points out.

“That won’t be a problem.” Quill grins. “Rocket, you can get into their ducts, right?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. Then everyone, get your boots magnetized and lose the reds. We’re gonna need a distraction to kick off the attack.”

Thor glances at Loki. “Let’s do Get Help.”

“Absolutely not.” Loki looks appalled.

“It works every time.”

“No. It’s humiliating.”

“You love it.”

“I hate it. We’re not doing Get Help.”

“We can do Get Help,” Thor tells Quill.

Quill makes a face. “Okay,” he finally says, “I’m gonna trust you. Mantis, your job is to knock out as many of them as you can.”

She nods dutifully.

“What are you all waiting for?” Quill barks. “Go get your magnetic clamps, ditch the reds, and meet in the hangar in five. Let’s move!”

Rocket follows Yondu and Kraglin back to their room and has a surreal moment watching them strip off their reds and throw on nondescript civilian clothes. Yondu takes an extra moment to fit his holster over his new pants, and shrugs on a coat that looks more like Quill’s than his usual duster. It’s still got a pocket for his darts.

Kraglin slings the big knife across his back and straps his throwing knives to his wrists. “You ready for this, princess?”

Rocket swallows hard. “Don’t make me drag your ass back from the dead again,” he finally says.

“I just got done bein’ dead,” says Yondu grimly. “It’s gonna take more’n this t’ kill me again.”

“Just don’t get cocky, okay? We don’t know how many of them there are.” Rocket’s not begging. He’s not.

“You’re actually scared.” Kraglin stares at him.

“ _No shit I’m scared, jackass!_ ” shrieks Rocket. “I just got you back!” He’s breathing hard, and he reaches out to steady himself on the bedside table. 

Kraglin looks away, maybe feeling bad for bringing it up. “I got the twig,” he finally says.

Rocket shudders, closing his eyes. “Thanks.”

“An’ I got Kraglin.” Yondu’s already off, striding through the door toward the hangar.

Rocket follows, rolling his shoulders. They’ve got this. He knows what each of them can do. And if he’s worried that Quill’s picking fights to cope, well, it’s not like he hasn’t done the same thing. At least this is a fight they can win. Hell, Yondu took out his own crew damn near singlehanded. 

Thor’s wearing sweatpants when they get there, which isn’t exactly what Rocket would have picked for a battle, but he’s the distraction, so maybe he knows what he’s doing. He’s got his arms crossed and he’s sitting close to Loki, who looks like he’s ready to start some shit. Or maybe that’s just his face.

Nebula’s got an arm around Mantis, and she presses a fierce kiss to the side of her head before she steps up next to Quill. “They’re locking on,” she reports.

Quill nods grimly. “Okay. Thor, on my signal, you do Get Help.”

“What’s the signal?” asks Loki, who looks pissy again at the mention of the distraction.

“I do this.” Quill rubs his nose.

“We wait for you to pick your nose,” says Thor. “Got it.”

“What the—I’m not _picking my nose!_ I’m rubbing it!”

“It looks a little like you were picking it,” says Drax.

“You shut up.” Quill’s doing his grumpy kitten scowl that makes him look about ten. “Let’s focus, people. They don’t make it past the hangar. We take out the first wave and then bring the fight to them.”

“I am Groot,” Groot says enthusiastically.

“You’re with us, twig,” says Kraglin. “Long as that’s okay with you, Pete.”

Quill looks at Groot, then nods. He rests a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You be careful,” he says quietly. “Stay close to Yondu.”

“I am Groot,” he grumbles, trying to shrug Quill’s hand off.

“Yeah, but humor your dumbass dads, huh?” Rocket gives him a smile that he hopes hides how damn scared he is. 

Groot sighs, but mutters, “I am Groot,” and moves closer to Yondu.

“Just like old times,” Yondu murmurs, and that makes Groot smile a little.

The hatch clangs, and Quill says, “showtime, a-holes.”

Rocket keeps his hands open and away from his guns as the hatch grinds open and a bunch of grey-clad Ravagers step through. The effort not to shoot them damn near makes him shake.

“Who’s the captain?” demands the guy in the front, a tubby Krylorian whose sweaty face shines under the lights.

“I am,” says Quill. “We don’t want any trouble. We’re just junkers, man, we didn’t mean to poach your territory.”

“Bad luck,” the guy says, grinning with teeth that are nastier than Yondu’s. “Hope you’ve got somethin’ good for us, punk.”

Quill nods tiredly and reaches up to rub his nose. 

Loki sways on his feet and collapses against Thor, groaning. The Ravagers all turn, guns swinging in their direction.

Thor grips Loki tightly. “Help,” he croaks, looking up wildly. “Get help! My brother needs help!”

The Ravagers look around uncomfortably, muttering to themselves. Finally the Krylorian takes a step forward. “Let’s take a look at him—”

Rocket can’t say he’s expecting what happens next: Thor takes a few stumbling steps forward, hauling Loki alongside, and then he lifts Loki with one arm and flings him bodily into the group of Ravagers.

They go down with a lot of squawking and a stray shot goes off, ricocheting against the ceiling. Rocket hears Yondu’s whistle and takes off, running on all fours through the fight that breaks out across the hangar to get to the hatch. Being as small as he is has benefits, and being able to scamper underfoot while Thor lights up the place with lightning is one of them. 

Rocket gets through the hatch and immediately freezes when he bumps into more Ravagers on the other side. They stop at the sight of him, but before they can do more than reach for their guns a red streak cuts across the air and they drop.

“God, I love that man,” Rocket mutters, and keeps running.

It’s not hard to sneak into the ducts in the pandemonium, and Rocket crawls until he reaches the engine room. Ravager ships are all laid out differently; most of them are assembled piecemeal out of scrap and added onto as needed, so predictability ain’t part of the deal. But Rocket can smell fuel and moonshine from half a mile away, and he lets the scent guide him to where he needs to be.

No one could accuse these goons of being smart, he thinks as he peers down into the mostly empty engine room. They left their back wide open to go join the fight at the front. Rocket hops down, shoots the two closest to him, and takes a running leap at the third that bowls the guy over. He cracks his head on the deck and doesn’t get up. Rocket crouches on his chest for a second, listening for more, and when the coast is clear straightens up and saunters to the artificial gravity. It’s right where most people have it, next to all the other environmental controls. Easy to manage. Easier to sabotage. Rocket, of course, designed the Quadrant a lot smarter.

He kills the gravity and watches happily as the Ravagers flail their way through the air. This almost makes wearing shoes worth it; Rocket hates how they cramp his toes, but they do let him plant his feet while he shoots them out of the air like those carnival games he was so good at back on Earth.

He still maintains he won that stuffed llama and Rhodey only sided with Nebula because she looked scarier. Someday Rocket’s gonna get him back for that.

But first, he uploads some music on the Ravagers’ sound system and hums along as he clomps through the bowels of their ship picking off floaters. When he reaches an open area he somehow always finds one of the darts zipping around in a deadly streak, and he’s proud of how after all these years apart he still doesn’t flinch when it passes within a hair of him. Some things really haven’t changed.

“We’ve got them confined to this level.” Loki appears out of thin air next to him.

Rocket swears loudly. “Dude! I will shoot your nuts off if you sneak up on me like that again.”

Loki spins way too gracefully for a guy wearing magnetic boots and slits the throat of a Ravager that had been swimming through the air in their direction. Some of the blood drifts toward him and Rocket enjoys watching him dodge it.

“It’s hard to be cool in zero-g,” he says fairly, not bothering to hide his grin.

Loki glares at him.

“Come on, fancy man. Let’s regroup with the others.” Rocket holsters his gun, ear twitching as a dart loops around. He’s gratified that Loki jumps when it passes just overhead.

They find Quill and the others in the big hangar where all the M-ships are stored. The sweaty Krylorian is still alive, pinned in place by Yondu’s arrow while the darts zip around picking off the last of his crew.

Quill has an unpleasant smile on his face. “So why don’t you start by telling us how you got control of this ship?” he asks sweetly.

The Krylorian spits at his feet.

Quill narrows his eyes, but before he can say anything Kraglin steps forward and backhands the bastard so hard he falls on his ass. “When my cap’n asks you a question you answer, Code breaker.”

That gets the guy’s attention. “Big talk from the original Code breaker. I heard a rumor you sucked Ogord’s cock to get reinstated, Udonta.”

“Is that what you heard?” Yondu’s smile is cold. “Shows what you know, asshole. Wanna know what I know? I know orders from Aleta Ogord say t’ kill anyone claimin’ they’re Ravagers who ain’t keepin’ to the Code. You got somethin’ t’ say to that?”

The Krylorian sets his jaw.

Quill grew up with their double act, so he picks up Yondu’s lead. “That’s what I thought. So how did you get command?”

There’s a tense minute where the guy grinds his teeth and looks from Quill to Kraglin to Yondu and back, and then he growls, “mutiny. We killed Voesh in his sleep and claimed the ship for ourselves.”

“Chicken shit,” Kraglin mutters under his breath.

“Rocket,” says Quill after letting the Krylorian sweat more, “how long will it take us to uninstall their water tank and install it in the Quadrant?”

Rocket smiles as the Krylorian makes a protesting noise that gets cut off by another backhand from Kraglin. “Couple hours if I got help. You up for the job, baby?”

“I’m up for anything, princess.” Kraglin’s smile is all teeth.

“Good. Let’s get this party started.”

It ends up taking more than just a few hours; they need Thor’s help to get the tank onto the Quadrant, and that’s after they run into issues with turning the water off on this piece of shit ship. Quill and Yondu keep the Krylorian pinned the whole time, trading off who glares at him. 

Rocket has to rig some adapters because the threads on this water tank’s connectors don’t want to play nice with the Quadrant’s pipes, but after a lot of swearing and an escape attempt on the Krylorian’s part that got him an arrow to the knee, they’ve got their new water tank.

“Good,” says Quill when they relay the news. “Now we can call Aleta and let her know that she’s got one less mess to clean up.”

It’s cute how Quill’s pretending he’s not still scared of her, but Rocket ain’t about to break ranks in front of outsiders. “Go give your grandma a present. I’m turning the water back on and we can all take a nice long shower after you kill this creep.”

“Hell yes.” There’s a nasty edge to Quill’s voice that Rocket don’t love, but he can let it sit for now. He ends the call before he has to listen to the Krylorian beg for his life, and turns the water back on. He’ll have to keep an eye on it while the tank fills to make sure it doesn’t flood or anything else, but after that they’ll be sitting pretty.

Thor’s mostly been holding tools for them, staying out of the way, but now he rubs his nose and asks, “is Quill really going to kill a defeated enemy?”

Rocket glances at him. “You’re not against killing,” he says.

“No, but the battle was won honorably. Executing survivors is....not our way.”

“It’s ours when the survivors was Code breakers,” says Kraglin. He looks amazing with his jumpsuit folded down and tied around his waist. Rocket’s surprised by the sudden throb of _wanting_ that goes through him at the sight. Kraglin’s studying Thor with that hooded look he gets sometimes, the one that means trouble. “Ain’t somethin’ I expect outsiders to understand.”

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s clear we both have strong concepts of honor,” Thor says sincerely. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Kraglin tilts his head and blinks slowly.

Rocket clears his throat. “Yondu’s parents lead the Ravagers,” he says. “These guys breakin’ the Code they created ain’t just an insult to the Code, it’s an insult to them.”

“Ah.” Thor nods. “That explains it. Thanks.” He gives Kraglin a defiantly cheerful smile and says, “I suppose I should go find Loki and make sure he isn’t causing any mischief. You’ll let me know when we can shower, right?”

“Damn right. You smell like corn chips when you sweat.” Rocket grins at him.

Thor grins back. “And you reek of wet dog. See you later.”

Rocket waves.

“You wanna explain why you like him?” asks Kraglin after he’s gone.

“Only reason Quill hates him is because Gamora thought he was hot,” says Rocket. “An’ we gave him shit about bein’ insecure, so he was a dick to Thor, and Thor started fucking with him in retaliation. It’s all real stupid.”

Kraglin gives a little scoff. “Pete was worried about her? Really?”

“You didn’t see Thor when he was buff,” Rocket answers with a sly grin.

Kraglin’s eyes narrow.

Rocket pretends like he doesn’t notice. “Seriously, you ever seen a guy with an eight-pack? Not the usual six, baby, Quill’s got that, but _eight?_ An’ arms as big around as my waist, I’m not even kidding. There’s a reason Drax wants to tap that.” He turns away so Kraglin can’t see him trying not to laugh.

There’s a pause. “You think you’re bein’ funny, huh?” asks Kraglin, and the tone of his voice makes Rocket shiver.

He glances over his shoulder and blinks innocently. “Funny? I ain’t sure what you mean, baby, I’m just givin’ a totally unbiased description of the guy.”

“Stop talkin’,” Kraglin says softly.

Rocket lets himself grin then, and he looks Kraglin over deliberately. “Good thing I’m more into mean skinny guys with bad tattoos,” he says.

Kraglin takes a step forward. “Thought you liked my tattoos.”

Rocket eyes his neck appreciatively. “I like bitin’ ‘em and makin’ you squirm.”

“You got real cocky while we was gone, didn’t you?” Kraglin crowds him up against the water tank; Rocket shivers at the cool metal on his back. 

“Didn’t have you to keep me in line,” he says quietly. It’s like a switch has flipped in his brain and turned his libido back on, and now he can’t get enough of Kraglin’s scent. He smells like home and sex and good things Rocket’s spent so much time ignoring that he’s forgotten how to want. It’s heady, having him back after all this time. He’s really _here,_ standing in front of Rocket with his hooded blue eyes and his gnarly metal teeth and his skinny chest that Rocket wants to bury his face in.

“Guess we gotta fix that,” Kraglin murmurs, leaning down close to Rocket’s face.

Rocket surprises himself by moving first, grabbing handfuls of Kraglin’s hair and licking frantically at his lips. Kraglin presses them chest to chest, wrapping one of those big hands around Rocket’s waist and opening his mouth. Rocket licks inside, moaning out loud at the taste of him. So many little things get lost with time, and the exact taste of Kraglin’s mouth was one of them. Rocket can’t believe he forgot. He never wants to again.

“Shit,” he whispers against Kraglin’s mouth, “I fucking missed this, I missed you, I—”

Kraglin kisses him again to shut him up, curling his tongue around Rocket’s canine with easy practice. “Don’t gotta tell me what I already know,” he says softly. “I got you, princess.”

Rocket closes his eyes. “I know,” he croaks. “I know you do.”

“No more checkin’ out sexy Asgardians,” Kraglin murmurs against his lips.

Rocket grins. “You think he’s sexy?”

Kraglin pulls away with a disgusted grimace. “What the hell, Rocket.”

It makes Rocket laugh. “Come back here an’ make me feel sexy.” 

“Pain in the ass,” Kraglin mutters, but he kisses him again.

Rocket curls his hand around the back of Kraglin’s neck, letting his claws scrape just a little over his skin. It makes him shiver, and Rocket loves the look in his eyes when he pulls back enough to whisper, “how ‘bout that shower, princess?”

That’s a fantastic idea, and Rocket tells him so. “You’re gettin’ pretty ripe anyway, baby. Marinatin’ in your own ball sweat can’t be great long-term, you know.”

“Like I ain’t seen you sniff my balls,” says Kraglin smugly.

“I eat garbage when I’m hungry, Kraglin. That probably ain’t something you should brag about.”

“Everybody’s done that. It don’t gotta be a thing.”

Rocket sighs. “Let’s just go shower.” He glances at the tank, sees that it’s mostly full and not leaking, and huffs a sigh of relief. A flip of a switch and some gurgling along the pipes and they’re back in business. He whoops and shoots Quill a message to let him know. 

“Rocket, that’s great! Aleta says hi. And we’re all having a post-fight party in the kitchen, you should come down.”

“Yes, join us!” Thor booms into the comm. “We’ve avenged your family’s honor and Quill has shared his delicious Kronan ale!”

“Did I share that or did you raid my goddamn fridge?” snaps Quill.

Rocket glances at Kraglin. “Is Yondu down there with you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Tell him to come find us. And don’t bug me for a couple hours, okay?”

“What? Why n— _dude!_ ”

Rocket laughs and ends the message.

Kraglin grins at him and keeps a hand on his neck while they walk back to their room. His fingers tease the fur just right, making Rocket want to roll over and show his belly.

Yondu’s waiting for them when they get into their room, and he raises an eyebrow at the sight of Rocket shamelessly leaning into Kraglin’s touch. “Not yet, huh?”

Rocket smirks. “You know, you don’t look right in those civvie clothes,” he says.

Yondu raises both eyebrows at that.

Rocket steps away from Kraglin and pulls off his scarf. “You should take ‘em off.” He drops the scarf and walks past Yondu to the bathroom, shrugging his jumpsuit off as he goes.

“Well now,” he hears Yondu say behind him, but he steps out of his suit and turns the water on in the shower, so if there’s any other comment on Rocket’s change of heart, he can’t hear it.

The water gurgles, comes out yellow for several seconds, then runs clear and starts to warm up. Soon the room is nice and steamy, just enough to fog things up a little and soften everyone’s edges. It ain’t mood lighting exactly, but it’s nice for getting reacquainted.

Yondu and Kraglin come through the door, Yondu sporting a dark blue hickey on his neck and Kraglin looking smug about it. Neither of them seems at all shy about being naked in front of Rocket, and why would they? It hasn’t been five years since either of them have been touched. 

Rocket’s feeling a little bit like he did right before the first time, those couple surreal minutes between when he realized they wanted to fuck him and when Yondu actually did. Like there was a brand new world of possibilities open to him that he’d never imagined. Like he could maybe do anything. 

What he does is step into the shower and let hot water wash over him, closing his eyes against all the emotions he don’t know how to handle and tipping his face up to the spray. He can hear someone step in behind him, and the scent tells him it’s Yondu. 

A hand trails down his back, and he lifts his tail encouragingly, keeping his eyes shut as his heart starts pounding. He wants this— _god,_ he wants it, but it scares the shit out of him and he can’t separate one from the other. 

“So all it took was Kraglin’s bedroom eyes t’ get you fired up an’ ready to go?” Yondu murmurs, scratching just right at the base of his tail.

Rocket gasps; the sensation shoots all the way to his toes, waking up nerve endings as it goes. “Might’ve been a little post-fight adrenaline,” he says tightly.

Yondu hums. “A good fight’ll do that to a man,” he agrees. “Makes you wanna fuck just t’ prove you’re alive.”

“Exactly,” Rocket whispers. “We’re alive.”

Yondu turns him around and raises his eyebrows. Asking permission, Rocket realizes, and nods with a swallow. Yondu picks him up, guiding his legs around his waist (as far as they’ll go, anyway; Yondu’s always been broad), and Rocket wants to die from all the skin-to-skin contact. It feels perfect; he lays his chin on Yondu’s shoulder and closes his eyes, breathing him in. He’s warm and safe and Yondu feels so damn good.

“We got you,” Kraglin whispers, stepping up behind him. “Gonna make you feel real nice, princess. You good with that?”

Rocket smiles without opening his eyes. “I’m more than good with that. Get to it, baby. I can’t remember the last time my dick got hard.”

“That’s just a crime,” Kraglin says, and Rocket doesn’t look, but he can imagine him shaking his head.

“Ain’t about your dick,” Yondu says, “it’s your mind we gotta fuck, boy. You been walkin’ around actin’ like you don’t need this, an’ it’s time to remind you how much you do.” 

Rocket shivers, squirming just to feel Yondu’s body tight against his. He’s half giddy and half terrified of the moment one of them tries to touch his cock, and the combination is making his head spin. “You’re doin’ just fine with that,” he whispers.

Kraglin strokes long fingers down Rocket’s sides, making him arch against Yondu. “You was made for this,” he purrs. 

“Petty an’ soft,” Yondu echoes.

Rocket’s chest is about to explode; he wiggles more against Yondu, feeling his cock peeking out of the sheath. It’s good, it’s way too good, and he rolls his hips to get more contact.

“There it is,” says Yondu with a smug grin. “Been too long since I felt your pretty li’l cock, boy.”

“Shit,” Rocket pants, rubbing thoughtlessly against Yondu’s belly. The skin of his pouch moves with Rocket, and it makes some really good friction that has Rocket’s dick sliding all the way out. “Okay, yeah, there it is. Damn.”

Kraglin snickers behind him. “You damn near lost your mind already,” he says, and he flips Rocket’s tail up to expose his ass. “An’ I ain’t even put a finger in you yet.”

“Is that what you’re gonna do?” Rocket glances over his shoulder. 

“Unless you got any objections?” Kraglin raises his eyebrows.

Rocket gulps. “Nope,” he says quickly. “No objections.”

“Good.” Kraglin reaches past Yondu for the bottle of lube that sits in their shower, the one Rocket’s been ignoring hard since he got back because he wasn’t ready to think about sex yet. Kraglin squeezes out a big glob and puts the bottle back, making eye contact with Rocket as he rubs his fingers together. It makes Rocket clench up all over, legs tightening around Yondu’s waist.

“Oh, he likes that, Krags,” Yondu murmurs fondly.

“I know what he likes,” Kraglin says softly. He reaches up with his non-goopy hand to wrap around Rocket’s throat and tip his head back.

“Oh god,” Rocket whispers. “Fuck.”

Kraglin keeps him like that, hand heavy and firm on his neck, and rubs the tip of his finger against Rocket’s hole.

Rocket jerks at the touch, and it’s only Yondu’s hands on him that keeps him from writhing away. It’s intense, but as Kraglin slowly starts to press in, Rocket relaxes. His body remembers this, just like it remembers that these scents mean home, and by the time Kraglin has a long, bony finger in far enough to rub his prostate, Rocket’s humping Yondu’s belly again like he’s never been gone.

“Fuck yes. Ride it, princess.” Kraglin quirks his finger and makes Rocket yelp. “You been missin’ this. Someone t’ hold you still an’ make you take it.”

“Yes,” Rocket gasps; he’s already close to coming. His cock rubs just right against Yondu’s belly, and their hands feel so good on him. “Baby, please.”

“Don’t gotta do nothing right now,” Kraglin purrs, “just let it happen.”

“We got you, boy,” Yondu rasps in his ear.

Rocket would be embarrassed by how fast he comes after that, but hey, it’s been five years. A guy can only be expected to handle so much. He clings after, letting Kraglin’s hands drift all over him to clean the come off his fur, and he licks water droplets off Yondu’s smooth skin while Kraglin jerks him off. It’s nice, reacquainting himself with the way the scars feel under his tongue, and the noises Yondu makes when he comes. A million little details to fall in love with all over again.

And fuck, he loves them so much. He doesn’t know how a body as small as his can hold it. Don’t seem right, not exploding or some shit. 

Once they’re all as clean as Ravagers ever get, Yondu bundles Rocket in a towel and takes him back to bed. Normally Rocket would bristle at the indignity, but it feels real nice, being pampered. He supposes he can quit pretending he’s too tough for cuddling. It’s damned comfortable, after all. As he drifts off against Yondu’s chest with Kraglin warm and hairy at his back, he thinks he’s finally gonna be able to sleep through their snoring.


	4. Chapter 4

To say that Rocket wakes up in a good mood is an understatement. He got laid, he slept great, his fur looked nice when he crawled out of bed. Everything’s looking up.

That all changes when he steps into the kitchen and finds Quill glaring at a deliberately oblivious Thor over coffee. Thor has the news turned on, shattering their sacred morning ritual, and even Rocket—who likes Thor—wants to smash his coffee mug into the screen.

He fills his cup instead and takes a bracing swig. “Thor, you mind turnin’ it down? Some of us don’t like seein’ the galaxy go to shit first thing in the morning.”

Thor reaches over and mutes it. “Of course.”

“Some of us like to read in the mornings,” Quill mutters snidely.

“Yes, you have the look of a scholar,” agrees Thor blandly.

“As though you would know anything about scholarship, Thor.” Loki’s worse than Drax about sneaking. Rocket don’t care for it.

“I took Groot as an elective, didn’t I?” Thor smiles. “You can’t goad me, Loki. I’m too happy you’re alive to want to fight with you.”

Loki abruptly turns away from that unsightly display of emotion and fills his coffee cup. 

Thor lets him pretend to be busy and turns to Rocket. “You look better,” he says.

“I feel better.” Rocket hops into his usual chair and yawns widely. “Finally got a decent night’s sleep.”

“Please stop reminding me that you fucked my dad,” says Quill miserably.

Rocket shrugs, ignoring the weird faces Loki and Thor are making as he takes another sip of coffee. This crap between Quill and Thor is gonna have to get resolved before long. Rocket wants his peaceful mornings back.

Loki slides into the empty chair; Rocket can’t help but notice he’s put himself between Quill and Thor. “You’re the captain. Perhaps you can tell me where we’re headed next? Not that this brief foray into piracy hasn’t been interesting, but I do hope there’s some sort of plan aside from that.”

Quill stares into his coffee cup. “Next stop is Vormir,” he says after a long pause.

Thor goes still. “What?”

Rocket steps in. “Ravagers always go back for bodies,” he says. “Nebula and I should have done it earlier, but now that we have everyone here, we can send Gamora off like she deserves.”

Loki looks uncomfortable. “She’s alive,” he says after a pause.

“Not our Gamora,” says Quill softly.

“Souls ain’t at peace until you give ‘em the rites,” Rocket explains. 

Thor looks down. “In Asgard, we burned our dead as well,” he says in a low voice. “We would light their funeral pyres as we sent them off the edge of the Bifrost. My people who were killed by Thanos never got that honor. Our homeworld was destroyed just before he attacked.” He swallows. “I didn’t know your Gamora well, but it was clear to me she was a brave, honorable woman. If you permit it, I would be honored to help you bring her home.”

Quill’s lip wobbles, but he looks away, blinking rapidly. “Our rituals aren’t really for outsiders,” he says, echoing words Kraglin’s spoken a hundred times. It’s the first time they’ve ever pissed Rocket off.

“Quill,” he says, weighing his words to make sure they’ll have maximum impact, “remember what you said to me about how none of us had any friends because we hated new people? He could be a friend right now.”

Quill gives Rocket a stricken look, but pulls his face back under control a second later. 

“And,” Rocket adds, “if Clint was telling the truth, Gamora’s not the only one who needs to come home from Vormir.”

Thor sets down his cup hard enough to slosh coffee over the sides. “Natasha.”

Rocket nods.

Quill frowns, looking between them. “Did I meet Natasha?”

“No.” Rocket looks down. “But you’d have liked her.”

“The Black Widow was one of the most deadly assassins Earth had ever seen,” says Thor hollowly. “But she chose her own path, and joined SHIELD, and then the Avengers.”

“She chose to sacrifice herself,” Rocket tells Quill quietly. “She wanted us to win that badly.”

Loki’s staring into his cup of coffee like it holds the mysteries of the universe.

Quill takes a deep breath. “Then of course we bring her home,” he says after a beat. He looks at Thor for a long moment, then gets up and refills his coffee. 

Rocket sighs and pulls his cup closer. He takes a morose sip and sets it down when he spots his comm flashing yellow. Frowning, he reaches for it and sees Aleta’s number. “Aw crap. Quill, what’s Aleta want?”

“What?” Quill turns to blink at him.

The message, when he reads it, is along the lines of no one ever picks up their damned comms on this ship and she’s headed to their location to help them with the galleon they captured. “Thor, you should put on some pants,” he says grimly. 

“I’m gonna go take a shower now,” Quill agrees.

“Why? What’s happening?”

“My mother-in-law,” Rocket answers. He quickly sends a message to Yondu and Kraglin telling them to haul their butts out of bed and get to the bridge.

He doesn’t have time to do more, because his comm starts beeping again, and out the window he spots the jump point spit out Aleta’s ship. Rocket sighs and answers his comm. “Hi Aleta.”

There’s a pause. “Did you learn manners on Terra, Rat Thing? What happened to Old Bag or Greasy Bitch?”

Rocket snorts. “Good to see you too. Yondu’s probably takin’ a dump and Quill’s in the shower. You want the ship?”

“It’s your prize,” she tells him. “I won’t win a lot of them back if word gets out I swooped in and took it from you.”

Of course. Rocket rolls his eyes. “Dunno if you noticed, but we ain’t got a lot of means to process this thing. You can talk details with Quill, but I sure don’t wanna drive it to the nearest port.”

“You want my help, ask for it. Quit hinting like a girl who ordered a salad in front of her date.”

“Fine. We could use the help,” grumbles Rocket. “But we got unfinished business before we can start on this, so it’s your call if you wanna tag along for that.”

“And what’s so damned important that a prize like this can wait?” she demands.

Rocket swallows. “We’re going to Vormir to give Gamora the rites.”

There’s a long silence, and when Aleta answers, her voice is much quieter. “I hadn’t heard about that,” she says. 

“Sorry to break the shitty news,” he says.

“We’ll tow the ship, and we’ll go with you, if you want. Do you have the supplies?”

Rocket swallows hard, remembering the last crappy funeral he threw together. “No,” he murmurs. “We don’t have anything onboard.”

“The daughter of Thanos was kin. Take what you need.”

“Thanks.” There’s not much more to say on the topic of Gamora; Rocket doesn’t exactly want to have a heart-to-heart over the comms, and even if he did, Aleta isn’t the one he wants to have it with. “I’ll send you the coordinates for Vormir.”

“Do that. I’ll send some of my girls to get started on breaking down this garbage scow.” 

Rocket smiles a little. “Glad you’re back, you old bat.”

“I hear it’s thanks to you, Rat Thing. We won’t forget that.”

“It was a group effort.” Rocket looks at Nebula, who’s hovering in the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed. When he ends the call with Aleta, she steps fully into the room. 

“We’re giving Gamora a funeral?” she asks.

Rocket can see how tense she is. “Yeah,” he says. “Quill decided.”

Nebula’s brows crease. “And the Ogord woman is willing to help?”

“You know how Aleta is.” Rocket shrugs. “Group cohesion and image. It’s all a power play with her, but Gamora deserves the gesture.”

“She does.” Nebula looks troubled. “But she won’t like it if she finds out.”

Thor and Loki have wisely kept their mouths shut while Aleta was talking, but now Loki leans forward and rests his elbows on the table. “She might find it pleasing, to know how well-regarded she was in life.”

Thor gives him a side eye that means there’s a story there, but as much as Rocket would like to hear it, now’s not the time.

Nebula shakes her head. “That’s not Gamora. She won’t trust anything she hasn’t earned.”

“She did earn it.” Rocket might still get a headache over the time travel shit when he thinks about it too long, but this Gamora is no different from their Gamora. Just younger and more uptight. 

Loki shrugs elegantly. “Then she might take her newfound accolades and enjoy them anonymously. There are distinct advantages to being thought dead.”

“Like community theater,” Thor grumbles, which makes no sense. He’s still giving Loki the stink eye.

Loki blinks at him.

“Good morning! I heard Aleta was here!” Mantis beams and steps around Nebula with a hand on her lower back; Nebula visibly relaxes. “Ooh, coffee!”

It’s the little things. Rocket watches her fill her cup with a frankly obscene amount of cream and take a sip. Her antennae perk up. “Clearly we gotta get more Kona blend,” he says wryly.

“Yes, this is very good. Who knew Terra could make such good food?”

“Quill did.” Rocket takes a sip of his own coffee. 

“Yes, but Peter can’t cook so we didn’t know.”

Nebula snorts, and so does Loki, but he hasn’t earned the right to make fun of Quill, so Rocket snaps, “and how many Michelin stars you got, twinkle toes?”

That gets him a considering look and a superior little smirk. “Keep wondering.”

Rocket smiles back nastily and drains his cup. “Well, some of us actually work on this ship, so if anyone needs me I’ll be on the bridge.”

He’s grateful Aleta is offering to help. He’s glad Thor got his brother back. He’s happy that his marriage is drifting back to normal. It would just be nice if he wasn’t still picking up after Thanos’s mess all these years later. And since they decided a long time ago that he, Nebula, and Carol got to deal with space, he’s had a lot of messes to clean up over the years.

And that bothers him, because people hear about the Guardians of the Galaxy and they expect Rocket and Nebula, now. He can’t totally predict how Quill’s gonna take that, but he suspects it’s not well. Still, he thinks as he settles into his seat at the navs and pulls up a course for Vormir, the only thing he can do when that comes up is make sure everyone knows the score. 

Rocket watches through the window as M-ships fly out of Aleta’s hold to start on the Ravager ship. His ear flicks in Quill’s direction when he hears him approach.

“She works fast.” Quill crosses his arms and watches too.

“She’ll come to Vormir with us if we want,” Rocket tells him. 

Quill swallows. “That’s nice of her.”

“She’s got a soft spot for you a mile wide,” says Rocket.

It makes Quill snort. “This isn’t for me.”

“It sure as hell isn't for Gamora.” Rocket tilts his head. “Of course it’s for you. It’s for all of us. We gotta say goodbye before we can start fresh.”

Quill drops into the seat closest to Rocket. “Groot’s been crashing in my room the last couple nights,” he confesses.

Rocket keeps his face from doing anything, but it’s an effort. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I know he’s too old for that, but...it’s nice. Having him around.”

“You wanna move another mattress in there or something?” Rocket grips the armrests a little harder than he needs to and hates himself. It’s been years since he’s been jealous of Quill or Gamora’s relationship with Groot. He thought he was better than this. 

“Nah, but thanks.” Quill’s little smile makes Rocket feel like even more of a piece of shit. “He’s skinny.”

He is. And he’s got a hard time understanding why Rocket isn’t more upset about Gamora. Or why he’s so different in general. This is normal, that he’d turn to Quill once their tempers cooled down a little. It’s fresh for both of them.

But Quill wasn’t there when Groot started to disintegrate just feet from him. Quill wasn’t there to watch the terror on his face and the way he moved toward Rocket before his limbs crumbled. Quill wasn’t reaching for their kid when he died. That was Rocket.

Rocket looks out at the stars, grinding his teeth with the effort not to be an asshole about this. He settles on, “I wish I could do more.”

“You did everything,” Quill tells him softly. “You and Nebula are the reason he’s still here.”

“You forgot Thor.” See, Rocket knew he wouldn’t be able to keep from being an asshole.

Quill makes a face. “Fine. And Thor.”

Rocket heaves a sigh and tries to salvage the situation. “You know, it’s not like there was ever any question about her being into him, Quill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Quill with a failed attempt at dignity.

“Yeah, you do.” Rocket eyes him. “What, did you just get comfortable knowin’ there wasn’t any competition around an’ freaked out the second a slightly hot guy showed up?”

“No!” Quill glares at him. “He’s just not that good looking, that’s all. Definitely not hot enough to justify you all dropping your panties over him.”

“Drax was the only one droppin’ his panties. Mantis don’t even like guys,” Rocket says reasonably. “And if you take a look at what I’m into, Thor ain’t it. His teeth are straight, for Christ’s sake.”

And there, that gets Quill to laugh. “I’m not getting fat though,” he mumbles.

“And if you were, you wouldn’t be the only one.” Rocket eyes him. “Nothing wrong with a dad bod, Quill. It was the insecurity and acting like a jackass that made you look stupid.”

Quill looks away with a huff.

“Thor watched his whole family die. He was supposed to protect his people and Thanos ripped through half of them like it was nothing. Me an’ Nebula had each other after the Snap. Thor had nothing. And he thought it was his fault. I’m not saying he can’t be an ass, but Jesus, Quill. You two ain’t that different.”

“Yeah well, maybe that’s the problem.” 

“Maybe it is. But I bet you’d get along if you tried.”

“He’s here and Gamora’s not. I’m not all that interested in new family members that aren’t her.”

“Quill.” Rocket gives him a disappointed look. “Quit bein’ a dick.”

“Are you taking his side?” demands Quill.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Rocket can’t deal with this. “I’m tryin’ to make sure my friends get along! Dammit, Quill, you’re the one who taught me to _have_ friends!”

“Well, I should have taught you to be a more loyal one, because you’re being a jerk!”

“I would have pushed his ass until he _broke_ to bring you back!” Rocket bellows. “You don’t get to say I’m not loyal!”

Quill blinks, stunned.

Rocket bares his teeth. “I dragged him back in time to the home and family he lost and made him face losing it all over again because _that’s_ what it was gonna take to undo what Thanos did,” he says. “I knew he was fragile. I knew he might not be able to take it. I had to talk him out of a breakdown when he broke the rules and went crying to his mom. His _mom,_ Quill. And I did it for you.”

“I...” Quill swallows and looks away. “I didn’t know that.”

“Know what else you didn’t know? That he agreed to do it even though he knew it wouldn’t bring his family back.”

That gets Quill to look properly ashamed. “Fine,” he mutters. “I’ll try to be less of a dick.”

“Thank you.” Rocket looks down.

“I’m not—” Quill swallows again— “good without her. I’m not what I know I can be.”

“Well, I’ll kick your ass then. I ain’t as pretty as she is, but I’ll have to do.”

“You’re definitely not as pretty as she is.” Quill gives Rocket a miserable little smile. 

Rocket shrugs. “You’re not exactly my type either, but we’ll get through this. Life has sucked before. We can deal with it sucking again for now.”

Quill takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. “Okay then,” he says. “Plot the course for Vormir and tell Aleta we leave in an hour.”

Rocket nods. 

—

Vormir is a beautiful planet. Its atmosphere swirls blue and purple with wispy streaks of white that remind Rocket of marble. He hates it. The place should be ugly.

“Thor, Loki, you ready to go?” he asks, breaking the silence as everyone stares grimly at the planet.

“Yes,” says Thor quietly. He looks down and then squares his shoulders, and for a second Rocket can see the king he used to be. “Let’s go.”

“Do I really need—” Loki gets cut off by Thor’s hand on his arm, and he sighs heavily as his brother tows him along down to the hangar. 

The Guardians follow; no one talked about it, but everyone’s wearing their reds today. Even Groot put on his red armbands with the Ravager flame. 

They take the _Benatar._ The _Milano’s_ not spaceworthy after five years of neglect. Maybe it would have been nice to use the _Milano,_ since they escaped from the Kyln in that ship and lived in it for four whole months before Yondu and Kraglin came back into their lives, but they’ll make do.

No one talks much on the ride down to the surface. Quill’s piloting, so Rocket sits next to Groot and lays a hand on his leg. The kid’s hunched into himself, staring through the opposite wall with his arms wrapped tightly around his skinny body. He blinks once when Rocket touches him, but doesn’t say anything.

Nebula gets up to pace as they breach the atmosphere, grinding her teeth and clenching her fists. She doesn’t look at Mantis, who’s watching her with shared misery written all over her face.

Thor stares at his folded hands and doesn’t speak.

When they touch down and open the hatch, the cold hits Rocket like a hammer. The whole place is covered in rocks and snow, and it doesn’t look like anything could possibly live here.

Quill looks around a little helplessly, until Aleta’s voice makes him turn.

She’s parked her M-ship not far from theirs, and her dark hair whips around her face as she shoves at it with annoyance. The wind isn’t helping her perpetual tangles, but she pays it no mind as she strides over.

Thor blanches at the sight of her, but forces a smile as she approaches, a petite vision in black and green. “We appreciate your assistan—”

“What the hell is an Asgardian prince doing here with my grandson?”

Quill clears his throat. “He’s one of the Avengers. He helped kill Thanos.”

Thor glances at Quill with raised eyebrows, but only inclines his head when Quill throws him a surly look.

Aleta nods. “Right. Ravagers don’t forget, Asgardian.”

“My name is Thor.”

“That’s nice. This place is fucking with my sensors, Rat Thing. You have any idea where we’re supposed to be looking?”

Rocket nods to the massive peak in the distance. “There.”

Mantis hugs herself. “This place feels evil,” she whispers.

“Yes, it does.” Aleta looks grim. 

“This is old magic,” Loki murmurs. “Darker than I’m entirely comfortable with. We shouldn’t linger here.”

“You don’t look cold,” Yondu points out. He’s hunched into his coat, hands shoved in his pockets.

Loki smiles crookedly and lets his skin melt from pasty white to a deep blue. “Cold isn’t much of a concern for a Jotun,” he says ironically.

“Huh.” Yondu snorts. “You oughta stay blue. Looks better on ya.”

Thor gazes at Loki with something like wonder. “I’ve never seen your true form before, brother,” he murmurs.

Loki shrugs. “Hardly seemed appropriate on Asgard.”

“This is sweet. Some of us are still freezing our balls off, so can we walk?” snaps Rocket.

They head toward the mountain in a tight cluster, keeping their heads down against the wind. When it finally dies down, Aleta says, “so you’re a witch?”

Loki glances at her. “After a fashion.”

“That’s why he dresses like that,” Thor mutters.

“Shut up, Thor. I have some tricks up my sleeve.” Loki seems happy about the chance to show off; he raises a hand and pulls a blade out of nowhere, only to put it back.

“Handy.” Aleta grins. “Of course, I can do the same thing without any magic to help me.” A blade appears in her hand and vanishes a second later.

Loki smirks. “It’s in your sleeve.”

“Of course it is. Does it matter where you keep it if you can get to it just as fast?”

“Your brother is bonding with my grandma,” Quill mutters to Thor. He looks disturbed.

“So he is.” Thor also looks disturbed.

Rocket likewise isn’t sure he likes Loki and Aleta getting chummy, but if it gets Thor and Quill to get along, he’ll keep his mouth shut. Instead he looks at Groot. “How you holdin’ up, kid?”

“I am Groot.” 

Well, if he says so. Rocket ain’t so convinced he’s fine, but he’ll let him pretend.

Time seems to go syrupy as they walk; the peak stays far away in the distance forever, until suddenly they’re halfway up, and then they’re all on a flat stone platform way at the top.

“Stay close,” Loki murmurs. He’s speaking quietly, but his voice sounds loud in the absolute silence. Rocket realizes he can’t hear the wind anymore.

“Peter, son of Meredith,” says a strangely accented voice from the shadows.

Yondu’s whistle is the next thing Rocket hears. The arrow and all three darts are up and primed, and everyone with guns has them aimed at the robed figure that floats out of the gloom.

“Voldemort?” Rocket blurts, and Thor makes a choking noise next to him.

“Oh my god, that’s the Red Skull!” Quill sounds torn between horror and amazement.

The figure (which looks like Voldemort to Rocket) stares at them for a moment. “Rocket of Halfworld. And Thor, son of Odin. Welcome.”

Thor raises Stormbreaker a little higher.

“This guy alive?” Kraglin mutters. He’s got his knives out and his eyes narrowed.

“In a manner of speaking,” the thing answers him. “I guard the soul stone.”

“Oh.” Quill nods, but doesn’t lower his guns. “That’s fine, because we don’t want your crappy stone.”

“We are here for the bodies of the sacrifices,” says Nebula tightly. “I suggest you don’t get in our way.”

The figure tilts its head. “No one has ever come for the bodies before,” it says.

“First time for everything,” hisses Aleta. 

Mantis has backed as far away from the figure as she can, pressing herself against the wall. “I can’t feel his feelings,” she whispers. “It is like he’s not even alive.”

“We do not have time to talk to ghosts,” snaps Drax. He’d been pretty quiet on the walk over. Probably the fact that he needs a jacket in this weather. “Will you try to stop us from claiming the bodies?”

The figure is quiet for a long time. “There is not much left to claim,” it finally says.

“That’s not even close to being the point,” hisses Quill. “And we’re not asking.”

“No,” Thor agrees, “we’re not.” He steps up next to Quill; the two of them together make an imposing pair, Rocket has to admit.

Rocket fires up his aero rig. “Try to stop us and say goodbye to what’s left of your face, Voldy.”

“The hell is he talkin’ about?” he hears Yondu mutter to Kraglin as he flies out over the edge of the cliff.

It’s so far. Rocket stares at the flat stone at the bottom, squinting to try to make out the figures that should be there. A fall like that would leave her time to be scared, and he wants to puke at the thought of it. The wind ruffles his fur, but he’s not gonna pretend that it’s the reason his eyes are stinging.

“You got the stretcher?” Quill asks softly, joining him in hovering over the abyss. 

“Yeah. Both of ‘em.” Rocket swallows. 

“Then let’s do this.” Nebula slaps on her aero rig and flings herself off the edge of the cliff. It’s perverse, recreating Gamora’s fall, and Rocket knows exactly why she’s doing it. But god, watching her fall, seeing her get smaller and smaller...

And then she stops in midair and hovers, raising her arm to wave them down. Rocket gives the creepy ghost dude one last look, but the thing doesn’t seem like it’s gonna stop them, so he follows Quill down. 

A flash of lightning above tells him Thor is following him. He’s got two stretchers equipped with modified aero rigs so they can hover. Having this many people come down is more symbolic than anything; feels more right to have a person at the head and the feet. As much as Rocket would love to take Gamora, that honor has to go to Quill and Nebula. They loved her most; they get to carry her home. Rocket and Thor will handle Natasha, since they knew her.

There’s a circle carved into the slab at the bottom of the cliff, partly obscured by the snow. Along the edges are rough symbols hacked into the rock. They make Rocket’s head hurt when he studies them too closely, so he looks away. And that’s when he sees the first body.

It’s Natasha, but the only reason he can tell is the remains of the suit. It held up pretty well, considering it’s been ten years. The rest of her is mummified, wisps of red hair still attached to leathery scalp. The wind and cold have leached the moisture from her skin, making her pretty features drawn up in a frankly horrific grimace. Rocket swallows hard. 

Next to him, Quill lets out a soft little cry. Rocket turns to stop him, but before he can say anything Quill drops to his knees, hunching over what has to be Gamora. “No no no,” he whimpers, curling over her protectively. “God, no.”

Rocket can see a single outstretched hand, blackened with exposure. It’s still wearing Gamora’s rings. 

“Quill.” Nebula sounds strangled. “We should—”

He slaps her hand away when she reaches out and bares his teeth like an animal. His face is red, and there are tears tracking down his cheeks. They’ll freeze if he’s not careful.

“My god,” Thor whispers. He stares at Natasha and then closes his eyes. “Loki was right. This place is evil. Let us take them and be gone.”

Rocket pulls the stretcher out of his pack and hits the button to unfold it. He’s small, but he’s strong, and as much as the thought of touching Natasha’s mummified body grosses him out, he had enough respect for her that he mans up to help Thor get her onto the stretcher. They cover her with a dark green cloth so they don’t have to look at the ruin of her face. Her limbs won’t move; he has to buckle straps across her chest and one of her legs to keep her from splaying over the side. “Shit,” he mutters when he’s finished.

Thor nods. 

He wishes they’d had shrouds in their colors to cover them with. Gamora deserves that, even if Natasha wouldn’t give a shit. He’s not looking forward to putting Aleta’s colors over Gamora. And maybe part of it is that he doesn’t want to pry Quill off and have to look at her beautiful face all shriveled up like a raisin. Sue him. 

Doesn’t look like prying Quill off her is gonna happen anytime soon unless someone wants to lose a finger. He’s bent over with his forehead pressed to her chest, shoulders heaving. Nebula stands off to the side, looking away to give him space to break down.

Rocket looks up, squinting into the glare of the eerie purple sun to try and see the top of the cliff. It’s too far to make out anyone standing up there. “Thor,” he says, “you ready to take her up?”

Nebula flashes him an alarmed look.

“I’ll come back down,” he reassures her. God knows he wouldn’t want to be left alone with Quill like this either. 

“I’m ready.” Thor squares his shoulders with a grim expression. Rocket activates the stretcher and it slowly rises to about chest height for a humie. With a nod, Thor takes his place at Natasha’s head and Rocket goes to hover uselessly at her feet.

“She deserves a funeral,” Thor says hollowly. “One to rival Stark’s.” He gives Rocket a miserable little smile. “Doubtless she wouldn’t want to be fussed over. She was used to working in the shadows.”

“I mean, spy,” Rocket says stupidly.

Thor nods. “Shall we?” 

Rocket nods, and the stretcher begins to rise. It goes smoothly until they get about fifty feet up, and then Thor stops abruptly like he’s walked into a door and lightning flares all around him. It arcs down the metal of the stretcher, making Rocket jerk back so he doesn’t get fried.

“What is this?” Thor asks in a low, dangerous voice.

The red Dementor is suddenly there, hovering above them. “Vormir would keep what it is given,” he says simply.

Thor’s real eye shines white. “You cannot stop a god.”

“I can try.”

“You will _lose!_ ” Thor raises Stormbreaker, and Rocket has to throw up an arm to cover his face as Thor hacks once at the invisible barrier. Something in the air shimmers once, and then the rolling thunder overhead dies and the sky goes still again.

“You may take her,” says floaty Skeletor.

“Damn right,” growls Thor, and he shoots upward with the stretcher in tow.

Rocket gapes up at him, and then, with a sinking feeling, turns to look down at Gamora’s body.

Quill has gone very still. As soon as Rocket lands next to him, he sits up slowly. “What the hell was that?” he asks quietly.

Rocket swallows. “He said Vormir keeps what it’s given.”

Nebula hisses through her teeth.

“Fuck that.” Quill’s voice is steel.

“We’re gonna need a plan.” Rocket looks up again.

Quill wipes his eyes with the back of his sleeve and nods. “Let’s get her on the stretcher.”

Nebula pulls the second stretcher out of her pack and lets it unfold. “We can’t let this place have her,” she whispers.

A muscle in Quill’s jaw spasms. “I’m thinking.”

Rocket finally forces himself to look down at Gamora. He immediately wishes he hadn’t; she’s better preserved than Natasha, but that just means she still looks like herself. Only screaming. 

He shudders.

“Rocket.” The sound of his name makes him turn back to Quill. “What did the Red Skull say to Thor?”

Rocket avoids looking at Gamora. “Just what I told you. He said Vormir keeps what it was given. And Thor asked if he was gonna try to stop a god, and he said he’d try. I dunno what the hell kind of magic Thor did, but it looked like he just forced his way through.”

“So he can come back down and take Gamora,” says Nebula.

Quill looks mutinous. “Fine,” he finally grunts. “If it’s the only way to get her out, then fine.”

“I’ll go up,” offers Rocket, and he takes off.

Everyone’s milling around on the platform, keeping their distance from the creepy wraith. “Thor,” Rocket calls, “we need you back down there to help with Gamora.”

“He cannot,” says the wraith.

“Yeah, you said that last time, Skeletor. But we all saw how that went.”

“He has no claim on her,” Skeletor says. Rocket gets the bizarre impression it’s trying to be gentle. “He did not know her.”

Aleta sits up straighter, hands on her knees. 

“I thought we were claiming bodies, not souls,” says Loki quietly.

“We burn the bodies to free the souls,” Aleta tells him, staring hard at Skeletor.

“Ah.” Loki looks regretful. “I can see where that would cause a few conflicts.”

Rocket’s more succinct. “Shit.”

“I am Groot,” Groot growls, tendrils already unfurling.

“Hey!” Rocket points at him. “We’re gonna figure this out, kid.”

“Put them things away, Twig,” mutters Yondu. “Can’t punch magic.”

“I am Groot,” hisses Groot, glaring daggers at the creepy wraith. It stares back creepily, unbothered.

Rocket’s thinking fast. “Okay guys, there’s no more reason to hang out here. Why don’t you start down the mountain and we’ll follow up?”

“I am Groot!” Groot cries, outraged.

Rocket flies over and grabs his face, the way Yondu does to Quill. “You trust your dads, kid?” he asks softly.

Groot’s eyes are wide. “I am Groot,” he whispers.

“Good boy. Now go on. When shit goes down I don’t want you guys on the sacrifice platform.”

Tendrils curl around Rocket’s wrists gently. “I am Groot.”

“No one else is dying on you,” Rocket promises. “Not today.”

Groot stares into his face seriously, then nods. He lets go and turns to walk down the path leading back to the ship.

Rocket meets Yondu’s eyes. Yondu raises his eyebrows; Rocket nods once. 

“Come on, Krags,” Yondu mutters. “Can’t let the twig get too far ahead.”

Mantis stays close to the wall to avoid the wraith; Drax takes her hand to help her down the steeper parts of the path.

“Don’t let him be stupid, Rat Thing,” mutters Aleta. She and Loki are the last to go.

Rocket bares his teeth at Skeletor. “You’re a dick.”

“We all pay for our sins,” the thing says back. Like a dick.

Rocket spits on the ground in disgust and flies back to the bottom of the cliff. “No dice. Skeletor says Thor didn’t know her, so he can’t bring her out. It’s gotta be us somehow.”

“What? This is bullshit!” Quill snarls.

Nebula curses and looks away.

Rocket wants to kick something. They can’t have come to this shitheap only to let it keep Gamora. Everything he’s been through, everything _they’ve_ been through, has to mean more than this.

“So we need a new plan,” says Nebula grimly.

Quill’s got his scheming face on. “Direct approach might not work. Think it’s actually him enforcing the rules, or something bigger?”

“If it’s Skeletor, we can distract him,” says Nebula. Rocket can laugh about her unironically calling the dude Skeletor later.

“I mean,” he says, “I’ve got a bomb on me.”

“I’m not even gonna pretend I’m surprised by that,” says Quill. “Okay. We can work with this. What if we blow the whole platform and fly her out in the chaos?”

“That’s almost as bad as some of my plans,” says Rocket.

“It’s not good,” Nebula agrees.

“Either one of you got a better idea?” growls Quill. “I don’t know what to do with freaking magic, and I am _not_ leaving without her!”

Nebula looks up. “What do we do if we run into the barrier?”

Quill narrows his eyes. “I don’t know,” he admits quietly. He sounds afraid.

“I’ll plant the bomb,” says Rocket into the solemn silence that follows that confession. He flies back up, staying close to the cliff. Odds are Skeletor knows they’re up to something, but he doesn’t seem to care too much about it. Still, there’s no need to clue him in that something’s in the works.

He sticks the bomb just below the platform, fixing it in a nice little crevice where it’ll collapse the whole structure. He primes it, glancing up nervously, but there’s no floating Dementor to tell him off, so he heads back down. “Well, that’s done.”

“Okay. When it goes off, we rush the barrier. This is our Hail Mary plan,” mutters Quill.

Rocket is not optimistic about their chances of success. They’ve got exactly nothing to combat whatever magic is holding Gamora here. Still. “We go where you go, Quill.”

He’s squinting up at the barrier, so he doesn’t see the looks on their faces. But after a moment Nebula says, “yes, we do,” in a rough voice, and Quill swallows loudly.

“Light it up,” he orders softly.

They’d loaded Gamora onto the stretcher while Rocket was up top calming Groot down. All they have to do now is run. Rocket nods to himself, taking a deep breath, and he pushes the detonator.

The cliff above explodes, fiery orange and yellow contrasting with the purple sky. Quill’s already moving, shooting straight into the air with Nebula at his side and Gamora’s body between them. Rocket takes off behind them, gaining quickly. He has to dodge the falling rocks, darting between boulders that tumble down and ricochet off the cliff face. 

One of them hits Nebula, and her shriek as her arm goes flying away raises the fur on Rocket’s neck. They’re so close, he can see them approaching the barrier where he and Thor were stopped—

“No.” The Red Skull is there, hovering just overhead. Quill hits the barrier and yells, body convulsing like he’s in pain. The stretcher, still powered by the aero rigs, goes spinning off wildly.

Nebula shoots up above the wraith and then dives like a bird of prey, screaming furiously. She slams into him, sending them both plummeting for several feet as she pummels him with her remaining arm.

Rocket shoots past them, grabbing for the handle of the stretcher. “Quill!”

Quill looks dazed, staring at the barrier with a weird wounded expression. He doesn’t respond when Rocket calls him again.

“ _Quill!_ ” Nebula’s shout makes them both jump. She’s below them, still grappling with the Red Skull. “ _Take her! Go!_ ”

Rocket draws his gun and aims it at the barrier. The shot goes through like it’s nothing, blasting energy into thin air. He can’t help; it’s like watching Groot die all over again, there’s nothing to do but watch as the shit goes down in front of him...

Quill holds the stretcher in front of him like a battering ram and charges ahead; the crash lights up the entire barrier for a second, and Rocket can see that it’s a shimmering dome, the same sickly orange as the soul stone. It _feels_ evil. 

The stretcher starts to warp, metal crumpling like paper between the barrier and Quill’s stubborn determination. The aero rigs are gonna blow if he doesn’t quit.

Rocket doesn’t even have time to warn him; Quill shoves with a ragged cry and the entire thing flares a bright, blinding white.

“ _Quill!_ ” His voice breaks, because he promised Groot no one was dying, and this is Quill, and he can’t live without both Quill and Gamora, no one can ask him to, he’s never gonna be able to face Yondu—

The dome shatters.

It breaks with a sound like sucking air, and Rocket lowers his arm to stare in shock at the orange glow, which is now pierced through in several places by tendrils of blue-white light.

“Oh my god,” he breathes.

Quill’s got Gamora’s body cradled in his arms, still floating above Rocket. His eyes—Rocket doesn’t recognize his eyes. “You can’t have her,” he says shakily to the Red Skull. “She’s ours and we’re taking her back.”

The Red Skull extracts himself from Nebula’s grip and rises to meet Quill. There’s a long moment where they face each other. “I should stop you. This is theft, what you are doing.”

“No, theft was when Thanos kidnapped her and murdered her here. This is a rescue.” Quill’s eyes have entire galaxies inside them. Rocket can’t look at them without feeling sick. “If you could stop me, you would. So get out of my way.”

The Red Skull inclines his head, and lets Quill pass.

Rocket looks down at Nebula, but she’s already rising, grabbing his arm to drag him with her as they fly back to the ship.

No one speaks. The wind stings Rocket’s face as they pass over rocks and snow. For some reason, Vormir isn’t doing the weird perception thing anymore, and he can see the _Benatar_ getting steadily bigger as they approach.

Nebula lets go of his arm as they go in to land, flanking Quill. Thor and Loki are on their feet, staring with their mouths open as Quill touches down, still glowing faintly.

“You’re a god,” Loki blurts.

“Celestial,” Yondu corrects quietly. He steps close to Quill and puts a hand on his arm. “You did good, son. Come on, you can put her down now.”

Quill’s lip wobbles.

Rocket exchanges a look with Nebula and they both climb to the cockpit before Quill starts crying. She takes her place in the co-pilot’s chair, glaring down at her missing arm as Rocket fires up the engines, closing the hatch and lifting into the air before this bitch of a planet can change its mind. 

Belatedly, Rocket thinks to check for Aleta, but she’s waiting just above the atmosphere. She hails them as soon as they break through the upper layers. “Why did I just witness an explosion from here? What happened?”

Rocket looks at Nebula again. “Quill happened,” he finally says.

“Start explaining,” orders Aleta.

“You remember what his father was,” says Nebula. She sounds testy. “He didn’t realize he still had access to those abilities, but it turns out he does.”

“Would’ve been real helpful five years ago,” Rocket grumbles.

“Yes,” growls Nebula.

Aleta’s quiet for a long time. “I need to call Stakar. We’ll rendezvous back at our ships for the funeral.”

Rocket ends the call and slumps back into his seat. “Fuck,” he finally says.

“Fuck,” Nebula agrees. There’s nothing else to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some disturbing descriptions of corpses. I tried not to be graphic, but I was accurate. Keep safe, friends.


	5. Chapter 5

The funeral is way better this time around. Aleta called Stakar—who has full control of the _Starhawk_ again—and he marshaled what’s left of the fleet to come and pay their respects to Gamora. It’s only fitting, Rocket thinks. She saved the galaxy twice.

Aleta provides a couple people to help Quill get her ready to be cremated. They’d wash the body under normal circumstances, Rocket knows that much from Yondu, but this ain’t normal circumstances. Now they have her face covered with a shroud in their colors, her hands gloved to keep her skin from showing. Everyone is waiting on the captains to get their shit together so the colors go off at the same time.

Groot stands with the body, staring at it blankly while tears track down his face. He doesn’t move when Rocket joins him.

“Hey kid,” he mutters.

“I am Groot,” Groot whispers.

“Nah, you don’t wanna see her face.” Rocket shakes his head. “It ain’t pretty.”

“I am Groot?” Groot gives him a miserable look.

Rocket winces. “In the cold like that, for so many years...it’s really not pretty. You won’t feel better seein’ it, trust me.”

“I am Groot.” He gives in with a grumble.

Rocket touches his shoulder. “I should’ve made sure you said a better goodbye.”

“I am Groot.” The tears start up again, and Groot hunches into himself, leaves shaking.

Rocket shuts his eyes. “I wish I’d said a better goodbye too,” he whispers. He thinks of all the moments between them that are gone now. Reading Groot stories when he was a baby. Silently drinking coffee together in the mornings. That time Groot barfed candy all over her hair and he had to help her wipe it off before she could shower. There are a million memories he has of Gamora, and he doesn’t know how to share them with the version of her that’s still out there.

“I am Groot,” says Groot in a quivery whisper.

“Yeah, she was alone, but not really. She still had us, even if we weren’t there with her.” Rocket knows this. He knows because when he thought he was dying under that rubble, the only thing going through his head was that he had to see Groot again. He’d just wanted his family. “You gotta hang in there, Groot. You’re the best thing she ever did.”

Groot blinks at him. “I am Groot?”

“Yeah.” Rocket wipes his eyes where he’s starting to tear up. “Kids...I dunno, maybe you’ll have one and maybe you won’t, but...when you have a kid, you have a chance to be better than you thought you could be. Not everyone can manage that, but she did. Me an’ Quill are proud of you, an’ she was too.”

“I am Groot,” Groot whispers.

“I know you’re proud of her too. We all are.” Rocket’s datapad beeps, and he realizes they’ve been ready for a few minutes now. They were giving Groot time. He’s so grateful he could kiss Quill. “It’s time, kid. You ready?”

Groot swallows. “I am Groot.”

To tell the truth, most of the funeral is a blur. Quill speaks, but he’s quiet, subdued. The power that flowed through him back on Vormir is muted for now. He just looks exhausted. Groot slips under his arm when he finally can’t hold back the tears, and for a long moment Quill doesn’t speak, just hides his face in Groot’s soft leaves.

Nebula takes her turn, but she’s short and to the point. “She was my sister,” she says, as though that says everything. Rocket supposes it does.

Thor and Loki murmur words. Some kind of Asgardian prayer for the dead, Rocket figures, but while he appreciates the gesture, it don’t mean a lot to anybody but them.

When Quill pulls it together again he wipes his eyes. “Okay,” he says, and then again, softer: “okay.” 

“I am Groot,” Groot says, reaching into Quill’s pocket for the Zune. 

Quill gives him a watery smile and picks out some music. And damn Quill’s perfect taste anyway, because it’s Landslide and Rocket loves that song. He’s never going to be able to hear it again without thinking of Gamora.

They flip the lever, and the soft music plays as the slab they laid Gamora on rolls into the incinerator. Groot has to look away, but Rocket watches until the door closes. 

When the colors light up, Quill and Drax both start to cry, although Drax is a little more stoic about it. Quill holds Groot, and lets Yondu wrap an arm around him. Kraglin thumps his chest, and if his eyes are a little watery, well. He’s lost family before.

Rocket’s standing close to Nebula, so he can hear it when Mantis tangles her fingers with Nebula’s and whispers, “you can cry.”

“I’ve shed my tears,” Nebula answers her. “It isn’t as though this is fresh.”

“No, but you still grieve.” Mantis’s dark hair spills over Nebula’s shoulder like a curtain when she rests her head there. “I feel guilt and sadness and love.”

“She died because of me,” Nebula whispers. Rocket’s heard that confession before, when they were drunk. “I revealed that she knew the location of the soul stone.”

“And you are the reason she is alive now,” Mantis tells her softly. “I have heard you talking to her.”

“That’s a weird thing to say at her funeral,” Nebula points out.

Mantis pauses and then giggles, but quietly. “It is a weird situation.”

Nebula half shrugs. “Still not as weird as killing myself.”

This is the first Rocket’s heard about that. He swivels to stare at her, and catches her giving him a surly look.

“I did it to save Gamora,” she snaps.

“Oh _Nebula,_ ” Mantis whispers, and kisses her jaw.

Rocket looks away, to where Yondu has Quill half slumped against him and Groot’s vines wrapped around them both, to Stakar and Aleta watching stoically as the colors light their faces in reds and blues and greens, to Drax and Kraglin, and the Asgardians standing apart, like they’re wondering if they should still be here.

He wants, suddenly, to talk to Gamora. He wants to see the way her nose crinkles when she laughs, or that stupid little noise she makes when she’s pretending to consider a suggestion she doesn’t want to take. He misses her more than he thought was possible.

“You can cry too,” Mantis tells him softly, and he does.

—

After, there’s liquor.

“I don’t know what Asgardians do at a funeral,” Aleta tells Loki, “but Ravagers get drunk.”

“That’s something we have in common then.” Thor takes the beer she’d been holding out for his brother and pounds it in about three seconds. Then he belches. “It’s been too long since I’ve had Kronan ale.”

Aleta’s eyebrows shoot up. “Someone get this man another drink.”

Loki takes a more refined approach to getting shitfaced. He sips the clear liquor Stakar’s guys brew in their engine room and manages not to make a face. Tells Rocket more than enough about what he’s used to drinking, because that shit is vile. Even Quill mixes it with juice to get it down.

It makes Aleta’s eyes gleam with approval even as Thor pounds another beer and slams the bottle down, shattering it across the deck to the delight of Drax and the Ravagers Stakar and Aleta brought over.

“My brother’s appetites were legendary in our youth,” says Loki sardonically. “They only seem to have increased.”

“Shit, man, ease up. This is the first time I’ve seen him happy in five years,” says Rocket, watching Kraglin plying Quill with drinks. It’s only sort of working, but he sees Quill smile weakly.

Loki huffs. “He’s invited me to go back to Earth with him,” he says slowly. “When he goes back to return Agent Romanoff’s body.”

“You gonna do it?” asks Rocket, burping quietly after he takes a swing of beer.

“They won’t want me,” Loki murmurs. 

“What about the other Asgardians? They talk about you like you’re a hero,” Rocket points out. “And Valkyrie’s pretty cool.”

Loki shakes his head. “No,” he muses, “I rather think I’ve had enough of Earth for the moment.”

“So what will you do?” Aleta rests her chin in her hand, eyeing him. 

He gives her a roguish grin. “I’ve heard you were in the market for a first mate.”

She snorts. “You look good in green, witch. If you weren’t a man I’d take that offer.”

“I’m not a man.” 

Rocket sets his beer down and raises his eyebrows.

Loki shrugs one shoulder and with a ripple (fuck, Rocket hates magic), there’s a pretty dark haired woman sitting next to him, smirking Loki’s smirk.

“Tits don’t make you a woman,” says Aleta, but she’s smiling.

“Nor did a codpiece make me a man. Jotun only have one biological sex,” says Loki with another shrug. “As for gender, it, like my motivations, varies from moment to moment.”

“Ah, sister.” Thor grins and slaps Loki on the shoulder as he passes. “What say you about coming to Earth with me? The humans are very stupid about gender, they might not even recognize you.”

Loki gazes up at Thor, then fixes Aleta with a shiteating grin. “Thank you, brother, but I do believe I’m accepting a job offer.”

“Nervy little shit,” says Aleta. She grins with teeth and tosses back her shot. “Fine, witch. We’ll bathe the starways in traitors’ blood.”

“I do enjoy carnage,” says Loki. “And a fair bit of chaos.”

“We have that in spades.”

“I will change my mind,” Loki warns. “Eventually I’ll grow bored and move on.”

“You think you’re the first witch I’ve met? You’re a flaky bunch, but I can use you for now.” Aleta pours more liquor into her glass, and then refills Loki’s.

“So it’s decided then.” Loki raises her glass.

Aleta clinks it with her own. “So it is.”

Thor’s grin is frozen on his face. “Oh,” he says, looking between them with badly concealed fear.

“We’re all gonna die,” says Rocket, and pours him a shot. “Drink that.”

Thor takes it, still looking worried.

Stakar chooses this moment to wander over, because he’s got the worst sense of timing Rocket’s ever seen. “Hey, girl,” he says, dropping a kiss on top of Aleta’s greasy head.

She makes a face, but doesn’t push him off. Guess they’re back on. “Took you long enough to get your men under control, husband. Some of us were working while you sat around with your dick in your hand.”

“Good to see you too.” Stakar makes a face, pouring himself a shot and pounding it. “That’s not gonna drink itself, son,” he says to Thor.

“Um,” says Thor, and throws it back only to make a face.

Stakar grins. “You like it?”

“It’s nice,” Thor lies with a grimace.

“Come meet my new first mate, Stakar,” says Aleta. “This is Loki of Asgard.”

“Pleasure,” says Loki with an evil smile. “This is the husband you were telling me about?”

“Well, I only have the one. God knows he’s so fucking high maintenance I couldn’t handle another one. We’re not all Rocket.” She gives Rocket a twisted grin and raises her glass to him.

“Do I wanna know what you’ve been sayin’ about me?” Stakar asks wryly.

“No,” she and Loki say at the same time.

“Shit,” Stakar mutters. The smile slides off his face.

Rocket laughs at him. “You’re fucked, dude,” he says happily, smirking as Drax manages to find his way back to Thor’s side.

“Your brother is now your sister?” he asks, peering at Loki.

“Yeah.” Thor shrugs.

Drax nods. “My people have three genders. Sometimes they change between them.”

“That’s cool,” says Thor. 

Well, this is awkward. Drax is about to try again when the comm screens light up to show Charlie’s solemn face. 

“Peter Quill,” he says in his deep voice. “I just got the message. Wanted to send my condolences. It’s no easy thing, to lose your woman.”

Quill’s face is still red and blotchy from crying, but he nods. “Thanks, man,” he says.

“You’ll see her in the stars,” Charlie tells him.

Quill huffs a laugh. “Hopefully before that, but with less ball busting than our last reunion.”

Charlie pauses, brows furrowing. “What?”

“Well, she’s alive,” says Quill lamely.

The room gets quiet.

“But we burned a body.” Aleta looks confused.

“Do you mean to tell me,” Stakar says slowly, “that we cobbled together half the fleet in the middle of a civil war and lit the colors for a living woman?”

Quill’s eyes get real round. “No! Fuck. No, I’m not explaining this right.” He holds up his hands placatingly.

Rocket decides to rescue him. “Who here knows about time travel?” he asks loudly. It gets him a few blank stares. He rubs his face. “Oh boy.”

“Thanos destroyed the stones after he killed everyone,” says Nebula; when she talks, the Ravagers listen. “We had to go retrieve them from the past to undo his actions. I went back to take the power stone from Quill on Morag and was captured.” She glances at Quill. “And I had to watch you use an orloni as a microphone while you danced around like a moron.”

Quill goes bright red. “You saw that?”

Nebula taps her eye with an evil smirk. “Stay on my good side, Quill.”

“So what does that mean, you getting captured?” demands Stakar.

Nebula glances at him. “Quill took the stone from Morag and killed Ronan in 2014, just before the Battle of Xandar. My sister was alive then, and when Thanos learned about our plan to gather the stones, he used my time travel apparatus to bring his armies forward in time. My sister came with. She survived the battle, but she now has no idea who any of you are.”

There’s a stunned silence.

“Why the hell are you Guardians always so fucking difficult?” Aleta snaps.

Stakar’s shaking his head. He looks even more exhausted than usual.

“This is weird,” Charlie says after a moment. “This is a really weird situation.”

Yondu laughs. It’s loud and inappropriate and everyone looks at him. He glances around and snorts. “The hell’d y’all expect? We was always the weird ones.”

Aleta makes a despairing little noise and mutters something about her idiot child.

Rocket takes another sip of his beer as the Ravagers start to debate what Gamora being simultaneously alive and dead means. He doesn’t really care about the spiritual crap; it feels too much like magic for him to want anything to do with it. All he knows is that the Gamora whose body they burned is never coming back, and his friend deserved the colors. As for the Gamora he met nine years ago...

Well. He glances around the room and snorts. That girl’s got some big damn shoes to fill. And a big, weird, fucked up family waiting for her if she chooses to do it. Drax is trying to arm wrestle Thor, because apparently that’s how you get a guy to want to bump uglies with you on his planet. Quill’s sitting a little apart, still close to Groot. They don’t speak, but they seem like they’re gonna be okay. 

This is what Rocket fought for. Maybe the rest of the universe deserved to be saved, but Rocket’s no Avenger. He didn’t do it for the rest of the universe. Just this bunch of antisocial a-holes. And one assassin whose whereabouts are currently unknown.

—

“It wasn’t for nothing.”

Rocket stops, peering down through the grate into the hallway underneath him. Now that the ducts are clean, he figures it’s time to get in here and work on repairing all the wiring that got chewed on by orloni. He’s not counting on overhearing private conversations.

Last time did that, he’d ended up with a hangover and two boyfriends.

“I know,” Quill tells Thor, crossing his arms. He looks....calmer. Less ready to snap than he has been. It gives Rocket hope.

“That planet wouldn’t have fought us if we were taking nothing of value. The fact that it did...” Thor shrugs. “I don’t know the details. Loki studied magic, not me.”

Quill shrugs too. “Guess it’s enough to know it mattered,” he says.

Thor nods. “I should thank you,” he finally says. “I know we started off on the wrong foot, but I did want to convey my sincerest gratitude for your allowing me to come.”

“That was Rocket,” Quill points out.

“So it was. Then let me apologize. Your people rescued me, and I mocked you.”

“Dude, you were fine.” Quill runs his hand through his hair so it sticks up funny. “I was an ass.”

“A little,” says Thor. It gets him a glare, but finally Quill huffs out a laugh.

“Fine. I deserved that.”

Thor says nothing.

“You did mock me.”

“I did,” Thor agrees cheerfully. 

“Dude, isn’t there like a god code or something where we have to stick together? Because this feels like more mockery.” Quill scowls.

“I’ve lost count of how many times Loki’s stabbed me,” says Thor. “God codes aren’t a thing.”

“I could have sworn they were a thing,” mumbles Quill.

“They’re not. Not even close to being a thing.”

“We should make them a thing.”

“Shall we send an electronic letter to all the gods in all the realms?”

“Wait, Earth can do that?”

Thor snorts. “You’ve been away from home a long time, Peter Quill.”

Quill’s shoulders slump. “Yeah,” he says, “only that’s not really home, is it? Home is where your people are, and mine are all on this ship.”

“Not quite all,” Thor says softly.

“No,” Quill agrees. He looks away. “All your people are there, though.”

“Not quite all,” Thor repeats. This time he sounds amused. “But Loki has been far from home before. This time she goes surrounded by allies, and that’s all I can ask as a brother.”

“Gamora doesn’t have any allies,” Quill says softly. 

Thor hesitates, then reaches out and clasps Quill’s shoulder. “I didn’t know her well,” he says, “but she did not seem the type to stray far from the ones who loved her. Your father said it, and I believe it to be true. She will return to you.”

Quill looks at him, and for a second Rocket thinks he’s gonna cry. But he swallows it down and nods. “Thanks, man.” He pats Thor’s wrist. “Thank you,” he says, quieter. “You ever come back out our way, let me know. We’ve got a room open for you.”

“Likewise, New Asgard is always open to the Guardians of the Galaxy.” Thor smiles, and it lights up his entire face. “I’d love to introduce you to Valkyrie and Korg.”

Quill chuckles. “We’ll see. I don’t think I’m ready to spend any time on Earth yet, but who knows?”

“I am glad I met you,” Thor tells him. “All of you have been good friends to me, and Asgard remembers just as the Ravagers do.”

That makes Quill smile. “We’re only sorta technically Ravagers.”

“Guardians, then.”

“Yeah.”

They study each other for a moment. Then Thor says, “I suppose I’ve got a long journey tomorrow.”

He volunteered—quietly, after the funeral—to take Natasha back to Earth in the morning. It wasn’t right, he’d confessed to Rocket, making her wait any longer. Clint would need the closure. And so, Rocket knew, would Steve and Bruce.

“Guess so,” says Quill. “Night.”

“Good night.” Thor turns to his own door.

Rocket sighs with relief. About time those two idiots stopped fighting about nothing. He packs up the rest of his tools and heads back to the workshop, dropping down through the grate in the ceiling and making Nebula jump.

“What are you doin’ in here?” he demands.

She glances at him. “Gamora messaged me.”

Rocket freezes. “Oh.” He’s dying to know what she said. Did she sell him out? Is she pissed he left her messages? 

Nebula smirks. She knows he’s too stubborn to ask. “She wanted to know why a couple of Nova denarians paid for her meal after an A’askaveriian banker spit on her.”

Rocket groans. “You tell her?”

“I did. And I mentioned the Sovereign too, just in case.”

Rocket nods, shoulders slumping with relief. Gamora didn’t tell. She doesn’t mind the messages. “Yeah, I was thinking someone should probably warn her about them.” He starts putting his tools away.

“Did Quill ever figure out that’s his scarf you’re wearing?” she asks.

“Nah, he’s too dumb to notice,” Rocket tells her lightly. 

That makes her snort. “He’s pretty stupid,” she agrees. She sounds almost fond. Almost.

Rocket sets his toolbox on the table. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” She looks down. “Vormir was...”

“Yeah.” He lays his hand over hers.

Nebula turns her hand over to curl her fingers around his. They don’t really need words anymore, the two of them. Finally, she says, “you should get back. If you don’t fall asleep first you’ll have to listen to the snoring.”

Rocket smiles. “What the hell would you know about that?”

“Yondu falls asleep on the couch,” she shoots back. “Why do you think the tv is always so loud?”

Rocket has to admit she’s got a point, so he gives her hand a little pat before he pulls away. “You know, you’re my sister too,” he tells her quietly, and if she scoffs, she also ducks her head to hide how pleased she is.

“Whatever,” she mutters. “Go to bed.”

He snorts and nods. “Get some sleep, Blue.” Then he heads back to his room, feeling strangely peaceful considering they just had a funeral the day before.

He finds Yondu kicked back on the bed in his underwear—the red ones Rocket bought him after the Xandarian fiasco. They’re looking kinda ragged after four years of regular use, but they make Rocket smile. Yondu’s frowning at his datapad, tapping in numbers as he squints because he won’t get glasses. In the bathroom, the light’s on and Rocket can hear Kraglin doing something that involves a lot of painful sounding gargling.

It’s painfully domestic, and for a second Rocket feels like he’s standing outside himself watching some other version of him coming home. He’s reminded, suddenly, of the multiverses they created, where Thor doesn’t have his hammer and the Guardians never find each other. Maybe Quill never made it to Xandar after Nebula knocked him out on Morag. Maybe Rocket and Groot never found him. Maybe Groot never died to save them. Rocket will never know. What he does know is that in spite of everything he’s glad he’s here in this version of things, with these people.

Yondu glances up and smiles. “Hey. How’s the wiring look?”

“Not great, but we can fix it.” Rocket smiles and unwinds his scarf.

“That looks a lot like Quill’s old scarf,” Yondu says thoughtfully.

“Does it? Never noticed.” Rocket drops it on top of the clothes pile.

Yondu snorts. “Come on up here, boy.” He pats the bed, so Rocket climbs up. “Ain’t had a chance t’ talk since Vormir.”

That makes Rocket look down at their threadbare sheets. “Dunno what to say,” he says honestly. 

“Quill’s still got it.” Yondu says it casually, but Rocket can hear the anxiety underneath.

“You okay with that?”

Yondu huffs. “Guess I’m gonna have t’ be.” He gives Rocket a wry glance. “Ain’t too pleased havin’ the reminder of Ego around, but I’ll get used to it.”

Rocket smiles, because he knows how that feels. God knows he’s enough of an asshole about Groot’s other parents without half the issues Yondu had with Ego or Meredith. “Could be worse.”

“Could be better too. You ain’t said much about your li’l friend goin’ back t’ Terra neither. You okay with that?”

Rocket looks down. “You would’ve liked Natasha,” he says softly. “She kept all of us from fallin’ apart while the world went to hell. All she wanted was to make things right again. She deserves to go home. The Avengers deserve to have her back.”

The water stops running in the bathroom and Kraglin steps out, pausing in the doorway. “Ya never told us nothin’ about all them years you spent on Terra,” he says. “You gotta have friends there, right?”

Rocket raises his head. They’re both looking at him, but not expectantly. They’re curious. They wanna know how he spent the five years without them, who he met, what he did. Trying to close the distance that’s grown between them.

He smiles. “Where should I start?”

—

“Farewell, sister,” says Thor solemnly. He’s dressed in his armor for the trip back to Earth. Rocket’s not sure how he tailored it to fit his new dad bod, but he’s had enough of magic for the rest of forever, so he’s not gonna ask. “Be well.”

Loki’s been to the tailor too. She’s wearing Aleta’s greens, flame patch on her upper arm. The extra shoulder armor ain’t what Rocket would pick, but what the hell does he know. Loki goes stiff when Thor pulls her in for a hug and rests his hand heavily on the back of her neck, but after a moment she lets her forehead rest against his. “You as well,” she says quietly. “Brother.”

Thor smiles. “Don’t stay away too long,” he tells her gently. “Asgard isn’t a place, it’s a people. And it will always be your home.”

Loki closes her eyes, nodding once before she pulls away. “Thank you, Thor, I—” She swallows.

“What is it?” he asks encouragingly.

Loki clears her throat. She swallows again, dithering, and then blurts, “I was n00bmaster69.”

There’s a silence as everyone gathered tries to figure out what the hell that means. Then the penny drops.

“You spent the last five years trolling him on Fortnite?” Rocket blurts.

“I did other things!” Loki snaps.

“Like what?”

“I don’t answer to you.” Loki looks away haughtily.

“Uh huh. You got your ass kicked by the most mild mannered Kronan in the whole galaxy. Think about that.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

Thor’s been blinking stupidly through this entire exchange, and Loki’s snooty hair flip is what finally gets him to crack. He guffaws—there’s no other word for it—and slaps his sibling on the back hard enough to jostle her and earn himself a poisonous glare. “Ah, Loki! Truly, what could I expect of the man who sat around for two years impersonating our father while wearing a bathrobe and watching plays he wrote about himself?” 

“He what?” asks Quill flatly.

“Oh yes. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” says Thor, nodding.

Loki looks furious. “Thor, I never—”

Thor ignores her and reels her in for another quick hug. He grabs her wrist before she can stab him and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Be safe, Loki. I love you.” 

Loki’s sputtering as Thor steps away, brushing imaginary dust off the front of her leathers. “Yes, well,” she mutters. “You too, I suppose.”

“Stay away from Sakaar. I’m pretty sure you slept with the Grandmaster and I don’t want to think what his vengeance would be for your helping me steal his party ship,” says Thor.

“I _what?_ ” demands Loki, but Thor’s already raised Stormbreaker.

“Guardians,” he says warmly, “until we meet again.” And with a blinding flash of rainbow light, he’s gone, along with Natasha’s coffin.

“You fucked my creepy uncle?” asks Quill in the silence that follows.

“I hope not.” Loki looks troubled.

Drax sighs, watching the spot where Thor vanished. “He never responded to my offer to masturbate together,” he says sadly.

“Pretty sure that counts as a response,” says Kraglin, ignoring Quill’s little squeal of disgust and Loki’s revolted look.

Drax looks at him sharply and Kraglin steps back.

“On that note,” says Loki snidely, “I think it’s time I get back to Captain Ogord. I daresay there’s work to be done pacifying the fleet.”

“And helping us tear that ship apart for scrap,” says Quill cheerfully. The prospect of making money has everyone feeling a little better about life. 

Since Rocket’s first mate now (on paper if nothing else), he got to sit with Quill and Aleta and Loki while they worked out how much everyone was gonna make on this job. Turns out the Ravagers that attacked them had a hold half full of rare minerals that will fetch a real nice price on the market given the resource crunch. It’s a good haul, and a rare situation where everyone wins.

“Indeed.” Loki gives Quill a considering look. “If you’re ever curious about learning to manage those abilities of yours, I was trained by the most powerful witch in Asgard.”

“And I wasn’t raised by an idiot. What’d that cost me?” Quill shoots back.

Loki grins. “Depends on how generous I’m feeling that day. I’ll let you know.”

“How’s about I keep my mouth shut about you being alive so the Grandmaster never finds out you’re Ravaging, and you keep your mouth shut about my powers so he doesn’t come sniffing around like Tivan did when he found out what I was?” asks Quill pleasantly.

Loki eyes him. “I’m amenable,” she says with dignity. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She nods and steps around Quill to get to the hangar.

And then it’s just them.

“Well,” says Quill, “guess we’d better get back to work.”

Rocket falls into step beside him as they make their way up to the bridge, Kraglin and Drax a few paces behind them. He can hear them bickering quietly and smiles to himself. “You know,” he tells Quill, “I’ve been thinkin’ of sending Gamora some music. You know what her favorite songs were?”

Quill glances at him. “Of course,” he says softly.

Rocket nods. “Then you should probably make a playlist or something. God knows the shit coming off Hala sucks balls.”

“It’s so bad,” Quill mutters in disgust.

“And Xandarian pop got worse after the Snap, if you can believe that.”

“Horse shit, there’s no way to get worse. It was already the worst.”

“I promise you, it got worse.”

“No.” Quill shakes his head in despair.

“Yeah. So she’s gonna need some Marvin Gaye or Pat Benatar to jam to.”

Quill’s smile, when he looks at Rocket, is warm. “Definitely,” he agrees.

Rocket nods and takes his seat when they get to the bridge. The galleon they captured is gonna get stripped down, retrofitted, and given as a prize to whatever captain earns a name for themselves in the ongoing fight. He’s gotta say, he’s glad not to be in the middle of this one. Five years of being one of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is enough for any raccoon. He’s ready to go back to guarding the galaxy.

Yondu stands down in front, a tall, imposing figure against the void of space. He’s chewing thoughtfully on his thumbnail as he watches the M-ships zipping around, and Rocket can’t help but remember him standing in that same spot, spitting truths that Rocket didn’t know he needed to hear. 

It makes him smile, now. “Hey you,” he calls.

Yondu turns, raising his eyebrows. “What?”

Rocket wants to touch him. Wants to take his time, learn him all over again because he hasn’t really gotten the chance to yet. Wants to roll around in Yondu’s scent until it’s soaked into his skin and never leaves. “I know who you are.”

They don’t say ‘I love you.’ But that doesn’t mean they don’t say it. Yondu’s whole face lights up when he grins, laugh lines and crooked teeth and stretching scars. “Because you’re me,” Yondu shoots back.

Rocket nods. Kraglin is a soothing presence behind him, and when he looks around he can see Quill and Groot and Drax and Mantis. He catches Nebula’s eye, and she quirks her lips in that aborted little smile she sometimes does.

Nothing is the same. Gamora’s absence is a constant ache they might never get rid of. They know now what it’s like to lose. Time, family, security. They won’t take those things for granted anymore. But maybe they can figure out how to be okay with the new normal.

They say you can’t ever go home, but Rocket thinks they’re wrong about that. He thinks Thor’s got the right idea. Home ain’t a place. It’s where your people are. And almost all of Rocket’s are right here.

Tonight he’s gonna fuck his husbands and then he’s gonna send some songs to Gamora. One of these days, he’s sure, she’s gonna pick up and answer. Until then he’ll keep trying.

That’s all anyone can do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last installment in this series until Guardians 3 comes out and gives me a bunch of ideas. I’m still planning to do the whole song!


End file.
